Sermons on the Sunday Readings in the Catholic Lectionary 2014

Postscript: this is my final homily of 2014. Starting next week you can click on 2015 Homilies. See you next year.

We are, indeed, the bad and good alike. I don't think it means that some of us are good and some are bad, but we are all bad and good: good sometimes and bad sometimes. We don't come to the feast because we are good enough; we come because we were invited by the One who knows us best of all.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: Today, in the Catholic Calendar (and only in the Catholic Calendar) is a feast called the Triumph of the Cross, or sometimes the Exaltation of the Cross. This is rare in the Catholic calendar in that it replaces the ordinary Sunday readings: we're not doing the readings for the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The first reading is from the Old Testament book of Numbers and takes place after the Israelites have left Egypt and before they arrive at the promised land. Here the complained that God abandoned them to die in the wilderness. God then sent poisenous serpents who bit several of the Israelites who died. The rest repent and God orders Moses to make a bronze serpent and told Moses that whoever looks at the bronze serpent will live. John's Gospel quotes Jesus' words to Nicodemus. Jesus tells Nicodemus that the Son of Man must be lifted up like the serpent in the desert so that everyone who believes will have eternal life. A passage from this reading "Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life." If you've seen "John 3:16" banners unfurled at football games, this is the passage. Finally Jesus proclaims that the Son of Man into the world not to condemn the world but to save it.

Let's start by stating the obvious: the cross is not triumphant. The cross was the tool used in ancient times to crucify someone. To die by crucifixion was to endure a long, painful, and humiliating death. Crucifixion was reserved for the worst of the worst: the slave who murders his master, or in the case of Jesus, a person that Rome feared was trying to overthrow the government. There were other methods of execution; crucifixion was reserved as a way not only of execution, but also a warning to others that they will suffer the same fate if they commit the same crime.

Today we see a cross or a crucifix as the universal sign of Christianity: many of us wear crucifixes, hang crosses in our homes, and make the sign of the cross when we begin or end prayer. But it wasn't always like this. The first generations of Jesus' followers used a fish as their symbol because the memory of the cross was too horrible. Only after it was banned in the year 337 did the cross begin to be used as a symbol of Christianity.

In the years since "carrying your cross" has become a metaphor for enduring suffering while remaining faithful. We recognize that discipleship in Jesus does not inoculate us from suffering, and in some cases may well be the cause of our suffering (think about our Christian brothers and sisters currently living in Iraq or Egypt). We speak about the cross because we know that the cross is not the end of the line.

We know that because of the day Jesus carried his cross. In conquering death he endured the worst that this world could inflict on him. His death was not clean, or humane, or dignified. And yet he plumbed this depth and even then rose from the dead.

So in a sense the triumph, the exaltation, isn't the cross but the empty tomb. The problem is that when we are "carrying our cross" we can't always see the empty tomb or even be certain it's there. And our crosses come to us with wildly varying degrees of pain and suffering.

It's a concern of mine that we think of crucifixion we think only of the physical pain that Jesus suffered. Catholics of my age and older have clear memories of seeing crucifixes that made a point of the agony of crucifixion. Churches, cemeteries, and sometimes even funeral homes displayed nearly life sized statues and stained glass that graphically showed the crown on thorns, the wounds, and the agony. While a popular image (and one that has been particularly profitable for Mel Gibson), I've always been drawn to another scene in Jesus' passion: the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane. Taking place after the Last Supper and shortly before Jesus is arrested, he goes off by himself to pray and pleads: "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will." When he returned to his friends they had all fallen asleep. After his arrest, during his trial, and even when he was crucified, his friends abandoned him.

I hope nobody has ever suffered the physical pain of crucifixion or anything approaching that level of suffering. But I think we can all point to times in our life when we have felt abandoned and alone. We've all experienced times where we've felt devalued and marginalized. I think these are the experiences that call us to these readings.

We see the true suffering of this when we fear that there won't be a redemption, an empty tomb. And it's an easy fear to embrace. Despite all that we profess as disciples of Jesus we can fall into despair.

So how do we get out of it? I've come to believe that an intellectual awareness of our faith simply won't be enough. This is the hardest part, but I believe the Triumph of the Cross demands that our faith goes beyond an intellectual or reasonable profession. Times of great suffering and passion call us to live in a way that leaves no room for despair. They call us to recognize that Jesus' death and resurrection mean nothing if they don't pull us back to time of joy, community, and love.

I can't help but think of this against the backdrop of September 14, 2001. The morning of September 11th was clear and bright before the ugly and demonic hand of terrorism caused it to be one of the darkest days in our history. Those first few days found us bewildered, enraged, fearful, and bereft. As a nation we wondered if we were still under attack, we wondered if we could ever enjoy ourselves again, and we wondered if we'd ever be a truly free nation again.

During these dark days I had a conversation with a priest friend of mine. His sister in law's uncle was on American Airlines flight 11 that crashed into the North Tower in New York. We grappled with the need to see the Triumph of the Cross in the midst of all the darkness we observed. At that point the grief was so raw that it was hard to see even a small shaft of light but we both knew that was our call. And though we all wearied of the phrase: "If you [fill in blank here] you let the terrorists win" we knew that they would win if we didn't stretch our gaze beyond the cross.

Now, with the benefit of 13 years, we can see some progress. We still mourn the searing loss of so many people, the damage to families, office, neighborhoods and bowling leagues. We still experience prejudice against people who "look like terrorists" (even though the hijackers wore western clothing and were clean shaven). And we still fear another attack.

But in the last 13 years we've seen 3 presidential elections and the peaceful transfer of power from one president to another. We still respect the Constitution and enjoy the freedoms it grants. And while many of us have hung in with loved ones during hard conversations, we've remained committed to each other and are determined to love our neighbor. The healing is far from over but as a nation we have been resolute in our determination not to take our eyes off the empty tomb.

It's good to remember this when we are in the midst of our own suffering. We'll never go back to the way we were on September 10th but that doesn't mean the world need stay as dark as it was on that awful morning. Some of the healing has happened because others have done good work, and some has happened because we have done good work. But over all is the hand of God, who promised that the end of the story is not the cross but the empty tomb.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading is from the Old Testament book of Ezekiel. Here God commands that Ezekiel warn the wicked to renounce their ways. If Ezekiel does and the person doesn't repent, the wicked man shall die and Ezekiel will not be punished. But if Ezekiel does not warn this wicket man, the man will still die, but Ezekiel will be responsible for his death. Matthew's Gospel shows Jesus talking about how to correct someone in error. He tells his disciples that if they have the chance, they should correct that person privately. If he does not change, then bring one or two others to encourage him to change. If he still doesn't, then treat him like a pagan or a tax collector. Then Jesus tells them that whatever they hold bound on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever they loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. He finishes by stating that when two or more are gathered in his name he shall be there with him.

On their face, these readings appear a little chilling to me. Ezekiel is one of the Old Testament prophets and while the idea of being a prophet may sound appealing to us from this distance, it was actually a fairly miserable existence. Prophets were chosen by God to send a message to the people, who were often not interested in hearing what the prophet had to say; recall last week how our friend Jeremiah suffers under the persection of others. Here is seems that Ezekiel most needs to fear not earthly leaders, but God.

It appears God is telling Ezekiel that if he doesn't warn someone to change his wicked ways, God will kill that person and hold Ezekiel responsible. That sounds pretty harsh. It reminds me of the pledge I took at George Mason University: "A student will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do." We were told that if you see somone cheating and don't turn him in, you are as guilty as he is. Unfortunately this didn't entirely have the desired effect. What most of us did was not let our eyes leave the paper when we were taking tests.

But here it's a little different. It's as if God says "you will not lie, cheat, or steal, and if you see someone doing this, you have to tell him to stop." What if you're intimidated by the other person? Or what if you don't know him and don't want to get involved? Can't you just disappear into the crowd and pretend you didn't see it?

That seems to be a hallmark of our modern society: the protection of the crowd. There is safety and perhaps even deliverance in being able to disappear into a crowd. We've all had the experience of wanting to disappear or being slightly uncomfortable by what we've seen. What if you're in a store and see someone slip something into his pocket? Are you bound to say something to him or the store manager? Does it matter that the store owner is being robbed and that everyone will have to pay a little more for their purchases because of this? Isn't it easier to say nothing and pretend we didn't see it? Or is God calling us to move out of our comfort zone, just a little (or maybe just a lot)?

The context of the gospel appears different. Here Jesus is talking about resolving a conflict with a "brother." That connotes a relationship so at least here we are talking about someone we know. In some ways that makes things easier, but maybe in some ways it makes it harder. Our closest relationships make communication easier but sometimes it makes confrontation harder. I can have an argument with someone in the grocery store and I don't care what that person thinks of me. But when I see a loved one do something wrong I can easily be afraid to say anything for fear that our relationship will suffer. If you don't believe me, just look at any advice column.

The words of Jesus at first blush appear to be a step by step process: first you do this, then you do that. But be careful not to take this too literally. There was a religious community (not, I'm at pains to state, Catholic) where it was found out that some of the children had been sexually abused by the adult leaders. When questioned why the rest of the congregation didn't report the abuse to the police, they pointed to this reading and said that Jesus told them to keep it in the community. When told they were breaking the law, as some were mandated reporters, their response was that they were following the Bible. I don't think that's what Jesus had in mind.

But I do believe he had the Kingdom in mind. You see, every time we disappear into the crowd, everytime we pretend we didn't see something, every time we tolerate wrongdoing, we move a small distance away from the Kingdom. But everytime we do the hard work of expecting the best in ourselves and others, we more a small distance toward the Kingdom.

If we look at these readings only the surface it appears to be commands that God and Jesus have given us. But maybe there's another way. I may be dancing on the edge of what these passages mean, but what if we turned them on their head? What if we use these readings not to command us, but instead to empower us?

The Hebrew word "mitzvah" may hold the key here. The simplist translation for this word is "commandment." It's said that in the Old Testament there are 613 commandments (not just 10). There are 248 positive commands ("You must") and 365 negative commands ("You must not"). When a young man celebrates his bar Mitzvah he acknowledges that he is now "under the law." In some Jewish communities young women celebrate the same thing but it's called a "bat Mitzvah."

But a mitzvah is not simply a command, like a chore. It's much more than that. A mitzvah can also be seen as a good deed, and I think this is where these readings call us. If we see virtue as a chore, then it only does the job, like dusting the furniture. We don't revere those who dust well and we don't really expect kudos for doing it right. It's just what you have to do to keep the house from getting dusty.

But if we see a mitzvah as a good deed, it changes everything. If you shovel the walkway for the widow next door who is too frail to do it herself, isn't that a mitzvah? If you hold open a door for someone pushing a stroller, isn't that a mitzvah?

And given this, can we extend this to how we confront a child of God who isn't acting as one? I remember talking once to a graduate of the Naval Academy. He was telling me that there was a general understanding that they were all working hard to make the entire Navy better and sometimes that meant confronting others. He told me that it didn't do much good to say to someone: "You messed that up" because all it did was shame the midshipman. Instead he would say: "You didn't perform to your abilities." That acknowledged that the midshipman was capable, but came up short this time. Instead of shaming the person to admitting he messed up, this allowed the midshipman to try harder and live up to his own abilities.

And what are our abilities? I think we are capable (with God's grace) to build the Kingdom of God. I think that whenever we do something wrong it's not because we're screw ups, but because we're not living up to our best selves. I can point to several times in my life when I've been grateful (though not necessarily in the moment) that someone has pointed out an action or a statement that missed the mark. I'm a better person for their courage.

But that lure to disappear into the crowd is always there, and I think it has invaded some of us who follow Jesus. I'm always a little troubled by those who believe in the rapture. It's a belief that at a point in time of God's choosing He will take all the good people on earth into heaven. They won't have to suffer death but will, in the blink of an eye, be in heaven. There are several reasons I don't believe in that, but I'm also concerned that this can lead to a sense of complacency. I've found in many (though, honestly, not all) of these believers the sense that "I know where I'm going and you're on your own." In their view of the book of Revelation (the last book of the Bible), the end of the story is the Kingdom of God. That being the case, why worry about what we are commanded (or invited) to do? We know we're going to be saved. I once had a coworker whose car had a bumper sticker that said: "At the Rapture this car will be unoccupied."

I'm troubled by the passivity of this. Instead of waiting for the Kingdom, I think we are better served by rolling up our sleeves and helping to build it. If we think of ourselves as being involved in this Kingdom, this changes our relationship with God and others. Pointing out the wrongdoing of others is hard but if it brings the Kingdom of God closer, if it strengthens us and our relationships, the Kingdom will be all the sweeter.

Every difficult conversation carries some risk. The person (whether loved one or stranger) may not be open to our words, but if we hide behind this fear we allow that passivity to drive us away from the Kingdom.

And in the final analysis I'm heartened by the last line of the Gospel. Here Jesus pledges that he will be with us whenever two or more of us are gathered in his name. We think of this primarily when we gather for worship and prayer, but maybe he means it in a broader sense. I like to see the hand of Jesus anytime a conversation leads to reconciliation or deeper faith. I also see Jesus' presence in conversations that don't go well. Maybe the initial result of the conversation isn't good but it will become good over time.

At least we can walk away knowing we performed to our abilities.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: In the first reading Jeremiah, an Old Testament prophet, is railing against Pashhur, a priest in charge of the temple police, for his wicked ways. He warns the Pashhur that unless he changes his lifestyle, God will remove him from office and allow the Babylonians to conquer the land (which actually happened). Pashhur then punishes Jeremiah; in this reading Jeremiah is complaining to God that he has been "seduced" into being a prophet and is now paying the price for proclaiming God's word. By the end of the reading he states that while he would like to stop his prophecy, he can't and there is a "fire burning in [his] heart that will not allow him to stop." In Matthew's Gospel Jesus is warning his disciples that he will be put to death and raised up on the third day. When Peter protests that this cannot happen Jesus rebukes Peter. He then goes on to tell the disciples that they also must take up their cross and that anyone who wishes to save his life will lose it and anyone who loses his life for Jesus' sake will find it.

Let's face it: there is a downside to being a follower of Jesus. The word "gospel" means "good news" but the news doesn't always seem good, at least in the short run.

After Isaiah, Jeremiah is my favorite prophet. Unlike Isaiah he did not ask to be a prophet. As a matter of fact, when God chose him, Jeremiah tried to get out of it by claiming to be too young but God would hear none of it. Jeremiah was exactly who God had in mind, and God would tell him what to say.

Unfortunately God's message here was not good. It's often said that the role of the prophet is the comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable and God's wrath (and Jeremiah's words) were aimed straight at the comfortable leaders of his time. You see, the once great nation of Israel was crumbling. Much of the kingdom had been conquered by the Assyrians many years before and what was left was threatened by the Babylonians.

In light of this, the Jewish leaders were increasingly corrupt and were wandering far from God's expectations of them. In the face of this Jeremiah called them out (to use a modern phrase) and warned them of God's anger. Their response? Punish Jeremiah for not having proper respect for his leaders.

I feel for Jeremiah because it took great courage for him to do this. Then, like today, there were no doubt countless people who saw their leaders' selfishness and greed but did nothing. But Jeremiah could not remain silent in the face of injustice. He had to speak out, even knowing the price he would pay.

But his courage cost him, and we see it spilling out here. He lashes out at God for putting him in this position. He uses the word "seduced" here; other translations of the Bible use the word "enticed" but both words have the same meaning: "You were supposed to protect me. I proclaim Your Word and You make sure I'm listened to." This reading shows us the rage Jeremiah feels at his persecution and his rage that he can't shut up. He can't be silent no matter how much he wants to. No matter how much his life would improve. No matter how much he's being told he has to.

I think this is what Jesus is talking about in the Gospel. His earliest followers were attracted by his words, but let's acknowledge something: they also thought that by being part of his "inner circle" they would have prime places in his Kingdom. At least part of their discipleship was wrapped in ambition.

But discipleship, like prophecy, may be the right path but not always the easiest. And I don't think we always recognize this. Peter certainly didn't. His words sounded like protection (we'll make sure nothing bad happens to you) but also belay some level of self preservation (we want to make sure nothing bad happens to us). Jesus' rebuke to him is pretty strong but I suspect that taking the easy road instead of the right one was tempting for Jesus too. I don't think he is addressing Peter when he says "Get behind me, Satan" but instead he wavered in his temptation to take the easy road.

Does this happen to us? I think it does. I think we all face times in our jobs, our neighborhoods, and even our families when we see injustice and are called to speak the truth. It's not easy and we often have to face down peer pressure and our image of ourselves as "nice persons." Sometimes, like Jeremiah and Jesus, we need to move beyond our comfort.

Several years ago I had a friend who worked as a youth minister at a Catholic church in a wealthy area. The church enjoyed great success (at least financially) but there was dry rot under the surface. The pastor was a nasty alcoholic and the staff learned to steer away from him from late afternoon on. Any attempts at conversation with him about his drinking were met with threat of retaliation and they were honestly fearful for their jobs. One night there was a dinner for the parents of the children who went to the Catholic school; he showed up drunk and when asked to speak he joked about how he wears a bathing suit in the shower because he didn't want to look down on the unemployed. Everyone was horrified and embarrassed but didn't know what to do. A few days later the staff got together and elected the Catholic school principal to speak the bishop. He told the bishop that unless this pastor was removed and treated for his alcoholism they would all resign.

That took courage. Nobody wanted to deliver this message and nobody wanted to lose his job, but like Jeremiah, they couldn't not speak up. Ironically they were motivated not only for the health of the parish, but also for the pastor who had treated them so badly. They recognized that the path to health for both the parish and the pastor led them to a road that was fraught with risks. The bishop could have betrayed them to the pastor. The bishop could have done nothing. The parish could have been closed. But they did it anyway.

I think both Jeremiah and Jesus are proud of what they did. But I also think they would find too few of these courageous acts today. I'm reminded of an event from the 2012 Presidential election. On February 16, 2012 a law student from Georgetown University name Sandra Fluke testified before Congress on the Affordable Care Act and the contentious issue of whether birth control should be covered by health insurance. She testified that for some women oral contraceptives are not used only for birth control, but also for specific health issues such as polycystic ovary syndrome. A week later, on February 29th, Rush Limbaugh called her a slut and a prostitute. While she said nothing about her use of contraceptives Rush claimed that Sandra was demanding that American taxpayers pay for her to have sex. He also claimed that if she wanted him to pay for her to have sex he wanted a tape of her doing it. There was outrage in many sectors, but not in those men who were running for the Republican nomination for President in 2012. Mitt Romney (a committed Christian and Mormon) responded that these were not "words I would have used."

Mitt and I have never met (though he owns a home about 4 miles from the only home I own) but I have to believe that he was horrified by Rush's characterization of Ms. Fluke. If that's true I think it makes Jeremiah and Jesus weep. He was running for President and yet lacked the courage to stand up to a radio personality. He was so afraid of losing what he had that he refused to come to the assistance of someone who needed support.

These readings speak to me because I think the call to discipleship and faith commands us to show the courage of that Catholic school principal. We move a few inches away from the Kingdom that Jesus proclaims every time we succumb to peer pressure or the need to be liked. We move a few inches away from the Kingdom when we allow our fear or need for security to cause us to ignore the call of the poor or the needs of the victims of injustice.

But we move a few inches closer to the Kingdom of God when we choose courage over fear, when we recognize peer pressure but decide not to let it make our decisions. We move closer to the Kingdom of God when we speak up even if our voice quivers. And we recognize that all of us move closer to the Kingdom of God whenever anyone makes a courageous decision.

Let us pray to live in a place where the choice of the right path over the easy path becomes something we don't question.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading is (again) from the prophet Isaiah. Here God demands the removal of Shebna, who is master of the palace of King Hezekiah. Shebna is accused of overreaching his authority and God calls him to be removed and replaced. In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus poses this question to his disciples: Who do you think I am? They give various answers, but then Peter proclaims that Jesus is the "Messiah, the Son of the Living God." Jesus is pleased with this answer and Jesus proclaims that Peter is leader of the disciples. He is the rock on which the Church will be built and he will be given the power to declare what will be bound or loosed, both on earth and in heaven.

Both of these readings call us to talk about leadership, in all forms, not just in who leads our churches. It's a little funny to see this in the Gospel reading because most of Jesus' early disciples never expected they would be around long enough to have to construct a church. They thought Jesus' return would happen so fast that they wouldn't have to make long range plans.

Now, more than two thousand years later, we recognize that Jesus' return wasn't just around the corner. And we've spent countless hours struggling with his commands to us while trying to figure out how to structure an organization that will best make this happen. It is no understatement to acknowledge that we've had good days and bad days.

And in 2014 we are still looking for the formula: how do we choose our leaders? Are they chosen by force? Or by intelligence? Or by genes? Clearly there is no "one size fits all" method. If we look at our history as Americans we can clearly see that we aren't a country that has our leaders forced on us against our will, and we don't crown the children of the last leader. And while we think intelligence is a good attribute, we often haven't chosen the smartest person in the room (as a matter of fact, only Woodrow Wilson earned a Ph.D.).

If we look at the sweep of world history we can see countless leaders who have claimed the mantle of "God chose me." But did He? And if so, on what basis? Our first reading from Isaiah clearly shows someone God didn't choose. Shebna, a character most of us don't recognize, was the manager of the king's home. There is probably no good parallel to our experience, but we can call him the head butler. He probably didn't have much to do with the running of Israel, but he certainly had a great deal of power over the rest of the household staff. Commentaries I read on this passage agree that he was removed because he overreached his authority. In other words he was supposed to serve and he decided to rule. He was supposed to act on behalf of the house and acted on behalf of himself.

It's easy to think that in ancient times this was just what a leader does. Once in power you use your power to make your life better, even at the expense of others. But a careful look at history shows this hasn't always been the case. Those in power who live only for themselves at the expense of those they rule have, from time to time, been overthrown. Film buffs can point to the famous Mutiny of the Bounty where Fletcher Christianson overthrew and cast our Captain Bly over cruel treatment of the sailors. My favorite example from history is recounted in the historical novel When Christ and His Saints Slept. In 1135 King Henry I died without a surviving son. His daughter Matilda claimed to succeed him but his nephew Stephen battled for the throne. The next 18 years brought about a bloody civil war so severe that the people of England (who both Matilda and Stephen claimed to want to serve) thought that God had abandoned them. Only when Stephen agreed to have Matilda's son Henry II succeed him did the warring stop.

Fletcher Christianson, Stephen, and Matilda all claimed that they sought to rule only to serve their followers. They were all sincere, but all flawed on some level. And to the extent that they were all followers of Jesus, all called on his approval of their reign. But for those of us who clearly believe we are not called to rule HMS Bounty or England, how do we choose? How do we know who gets our vote or our support?

The Gospel shows Jesus clearly choosing Peter, but what can we glean from that? We run the risk of reading too much into this since nobody expected us to be reading this 2,000 years later, but our belief in the inspired infallibility of the bible calls us look at this reading for guidance. I've said this before, but the earliest followers of Jesus expected his return to be within their lifetimes. We know that wasn't true, and on some level we have to read this passage with the belief that God is trying to tell us something.

I believe that Jesus chose Peter not because he was the most forceful, and certainly not the most intelligent. And he was not related to Jesus and had no family connection. I like to think Peter was chosen because he was the most in tune with the idea that a leader should serve the others. Perhaps this was something Peter was born with, perhaps it was a gift given to him by God. In some sense it doesn't matter: the fact that he exercised this gift is all that we need.

I read this against the backdrop of a great deal of sadness when I look at our country. We are blessed in that we can choose our leaders, but as I spoke of earlier, we don't always make good choices. In the 200 plus years of our nation we've never had a president who claimed the right to rule for life or pass his office automatically to his child. We've never had a member of the legislature who claimed not to be subject to the voters. And all of them run for office claiming to represent his or her constituents, but sometimes it's hard to believe them.

When I look at our nation's leadership I don't see leaders who want to make themselves wealthy or have unlimited power, but I do see leaders who are so afraid of losing their positions that they do anything to stay where they are. They vote in ways that violate their (and our) best interests to build up "war chests" to fend off opponents for their reelections. They auction off time and access to interest groups who don't need to tell them how to vote but make it clear that the flow of money is conditional.

In short, they have traded integrity for security. They have allowed fear of losing their job to change their votes. They claim to work without influence but nobody believes them. Their moral compass comes with several influences.

Maybe this brings us back to our friend Shebna. Maybe he wasn't abusing his power to make himself more powerful or wealthy. Maybe he was serving his master badly to make himself irreplaceable. But in the world of servant leadership, in the world that Scripture calls us to, we need to look more to service and less to security.

Maybe we need to understand that if all we do is in service to others we don't need to worry about security.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: In the first reading Isaiah speaks of the treatment of foreigners. Those who attach themselves to the Lord and obey the covenant will be rewarded. They will be welcomed into the Lord's house (called a house of prayer). Finally, this house of prayer will be for all peoples. In Matthew's Gospel a non Jew asks Jesus for healing for her daughter. At first Jesus ignores her, and even when his disciples implore him to do as she asks, Jesus claims only to come for the House of Israel. At this point the woman is kneeling in front of Jesus begging for his help. He tells her: "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the house dogs." The woman responds: "Ah yes, sir; but even the house dogs can eat the scraps that fall from their master's table." Jesus is pleased with this response and tells her that her daughter has been healed because of her faith.

In 1955 the Quaker Oats Company was looking for a gimmick to sell their cereal in what was becoming an increasingly competitive market for breakfast. In what became a wildly successful campaign they gave away land. If you bought a box of cereal, filled out a form, and included that with the cereal box top, you received in the mail an actually deed for one square inch of land in Yukon Territory in Canada. They ended up sending tens of thousands of these deeds and as a collector's item you can still buy these deeds on eBay.

I tell this story because I think it illustrates our devotion to owning land. There is something that owning a piece of earth that makes us feel more secure and safe, and this is true not only for ourselves as individuals and families, but also by nations.

As I look at the first reading from Isaiah, this is what I see: the Israelites have returned from exile and have begun to rebuild. We can hardly blame them for wanting to build higher walls and stronger reinforcements to prevent their defeat at the hands of other nations, for wanting to keep foreigners far away. We can well understand that while staying together during their exile saved them as a people, they would want to continue to draw a bright line between "us" and "them."

But as often happens, God calls them to another direction. God commands that anyone who wishes to join them (as long as they obey the law) should be allowed in. In other words, belonging to the community of God depends not on heredity (your parents belong) or experience (you suffered through the exile) but on desire (you wish to be part). God is calling them to move beyond their fear into faith in God. To move into a new reality where foreigners are not automatically to be seen as enemies or competitors. To welcome those who approach with a sincere heart.

Given that, I've always been a little perplexed by the treatment the Caananite woman receives from Jesus in the Gospel. Jesus lived in a complex society and there were many types of people that intermingled. But this woman was from the farthest end of the society: she is identified as a Caananite. The Caananites were the people that were displaced by the Israelites after their liberation from Egypt, some 1300 years before Jesus.

And so when this woman asks Jesus for a healing, something he had done freely in other circumstances, he insults her. Even the disciples are at a loss and suggest that he does what she asks, if only to get rid of her. By this time she is on her knees, clearly in supplication, begging Jesus for help. We can certainly identify with her, for who wouldn't do anything to help his own child?

But here Jesus makes it even worse. When he says "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the house dogs," he is drawing a distinction between children (the People of Israel) and house dogs (foreigners). It's almost as if Jesus has a limited number of healings he can perform and has to ration them.

Given all this, the desperate woman's answer appears to come out of nowhere. She tells Jesus that even house dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table. There are probably dozens of interpretations for this, but it seems to me that she is looking at scraps as excess food; more than the master needs, but food that is just as good as any of the other food. Only then does Jesus compliment her on her faith and heals her daughter.

I'm sure I'm not alone in wondering how Jesus draws a line from her answer to her faith. I have a picture in my head of Jesus' followers listening to a theological debate where she is declared the winner and they have no idea what happened. If I'm right, that she is telling Jesus that while he may have only a limited number of healings, he has enough to cure his daughter, I think it's an important point.

I spoke once with someone who does mediation (she settles conflicts between people). She told me that virtually all human conflicts come down to three things: resources, feelings, and values. She told me that people get frightened when they perceive scarce resources and begin to hoard them for fear there won't be enough for them. I spoke about this two weeks ago when reflecting on the Gospel about the loaves and fishes and I think there's an aspect of it on our front pages today.

I know I'm treading into political territory and I'm trying to be as fair and evenhanded as I can. That said, I've been watching recent activity on our border with Mexico with a sense of horror. In the last few months our nation has witnessed an increase in children from Central America crossing Mexico and entering the United States. The families tell us that parents are spending large amounts of money to near strangers in the hope that their children will escape gangs and drug violence and build a better life in the United States.

The reaction among many in our nation has been fierce: they do not belong, they want our stuff, and they have to go back. In fairness this has been a part of our history for most of our history. In the 1800s there was a political party known as the "Know Nothing" Party (they were fairly secretive and were instructed to answer "I know nothing" when asked about their views). They feared that Catholic immigrants from Europe would overwhelm the United States and their influence would pave the way for the Pope in Rome to run the country.

And while we can easily dismiss their fear a absurd, is the current fear any less so? How can these children hurt us? Will they become drug dealers? Unlikely since they are risking their lives to flee drug violence. Will we run out of food? Given the 35% obesity rate among adults in this country, that seems unlikely. Are they bringing diseases with them? We're pretty good at vaccinations and curing communicable diseases in this country; this won't hurt us and will help them. If our history shows us anything, these children will benefit from our superior educational opportunities and make up part of the intellectual labor force that will advance the world in the 21st Century. Or they will be forced back into poverty and danger.

Nobody is denying there are limited resources in our world. But like the scraps from the master's table, we need to see that there is enough. If we take the words of the Bible seriously we need to apply them not just to their time but also ours. The woman who is begging for her child in Jesus' time is now begging us for healing today.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: In the first reading from the Old Testament book of Kings, Elijah spent the night in a cave on Mount Horeb. There he experienced a strong wind, an earthquake, and a fire but God was not present in those events. After the fire Elijah heard the sound of a gentle breeze at which time he covered his face and stood at the entrace of the cave. Matthew's Gospel continues last week's events after the loaves and fishes. He sends his disciples into a boat while he went up into the hills to pray. During the night the disciples began to battle rough seas; Jesus came down and walked on the water toward the boat. This frightened the disciples (who thought he was a ghost); Jesus then announced himself and told them not to be afraid. At Jesus' invitation Peter stepped out of the boat and began to walk toward Jesus. But Peter grew afraid of the wind and began to sink in the water. Jesus reached out and took Peter's hand and admonished him for having little faith.

Countless books have been written on how to find God. They tell us that God is found in silence, in community, by the beach, in the mountains, in the eyes of the people we love, in the poor, and (my personal favorite) in Hawaii. But what do we do when God seeks us? How do we reach out when God reaches out to us? How do we know it's God and how do we interpret what we see?

There are, in the Bible, many names for God, but I'm only going to talk about two: El Shaddai and Abba. El Shaddai means "God of the mountain top" and it evokes a large and overwhelming God; it's often translated "God Almighty" and it's a powerful image. This God is the God who created the universe and all that populates it; this God has the power to make life and destroy it. This is the God of the Garden of Eden and the Flood of Noah. You don't mess with this God. I thought of this God when I read of the wind (strong enough to tear mountains and shatter rocks), the earthquake (we here in California hardly need to be reminded of its power), and the fire (again, we hardly need imagine the power of fire).

The image of El Shaddai focuses our attention because it fills our senses and overwhelms our experience, and frankly frightens us. On the other hand, this reading shows us that God is not only in the powerful events, but also in the gentle breeze. Because the name Abba is the Hebrew word for "Daddy." It is a term of tenderness and intimacy. When Jesus uses this term for God in the New Testament, it's shocking because it belies an intimacy that his disciples aren't familiar with. When Jesus refers to his Father as "Abba" he is telling us not only about God, but about God's relationship with us. It is the relationship that we see when a man holds his firstborn and says that he will love unconditionally, protect at the risk of his own life, and teach about the stunning beauty of creation. It is the realtionship of a father who tells his child that the world is dramatically richer because of what he holds in his arms.

But here's the thing: we often have a hard time seeing "Abba" because we are afraid of "El Shaddai." This is, I believe, at the heart of the Gospel. After the miracle of the loaves and fishes, he tells his disciples to get in a boat and go on the water while he went to the hills to pray. Anyone who has spent time on the water can tell you that there is no serenity greater than being on a still lake, and no terror greater than being in rough seas.

For those of us unfamiliar with nautical terms the "fourth watch" is 3:00 AM to 6:00 AM. It is the time when we all understand the proverb "it's always darkest before the dawn." I can only imagine how frightened the disciples were, even given their experience as fishermen, when the winds came up. There was a significant chance that the boat would capsize and they would be lost. And where was Jesus, who told them to go out on the water and then headed to the hills?

The short answer is that Jesus was just where he was supposed to be. He came down from the hills and walked toward the boat, walking on the water (the rough, wind blown waters). When we think about Jesus walking on water I think most of us think of the water as being calm; but here it was dark and the water was choppy. It's little wonder they thought it was a ghost.

But it wasn't a ghost. Jesus was coming toward them. There is a passage in Mark's Gospel (Mark 4:35-41) where Jesus calms the waters, but this doesn't happen here; there is no mention that the water became any less choppy when Jesus walked on it.

And Jesus tells them not to be afraid. I don't know about you, but when someone tells me not to be afraid, it almost never works (it's like when my dentist tells me to relax as he fires up the drill). But to his credit, Peter accepts Jesus' challenge to step out of the boat into the water. At first it works, but then Peter is distracted by the forces of nature and begins to sink. He must have felt that he was just seconds away from drowning.

But once again Jesus admonishes him to look away from the fear and toward himself. He is asking him to choose faith over fear. And when he does, when he reaches out and grasps Jesus' hand, he is no longer sinking. Peter has defeated the fear.

Of all the things I battle in my life, I think fear is my greatest foe. I'm almost always smart enough to know what will go wrong, how my life can take a bad turn, and just what catastrophe awaits me just around the corner. I'm not as good at realizing that the final chapter of my story is salvation.

I think this is what the readings tell us. We're skilled at seeing the winds that can shatter rocks, earthquakes that can topple buildings, and fire that can destory all that we love. But we're not as good at hearing the gentle breeze from our Father that tells us how beloved we are.

We're good at recognizing that we are small in a large world, but we are not as good at recognizing that we are beloved in an infinite Kingdom. It was only when Peter stopped looking at the storm and focused his attention on Jesus that his faith raised him out of the lake. It was only when his faith grew stronger than his fear that he truly recognized that Jesus is the Son of God.

I stand here today with little in the way of knowing about your fears. I don't know about upside down mortgages or children who cause sleepless nights. I don't know about your dead end jobs or the fear that your life will outlast your savings.

But I do know that my biggest fears of 20 years ago cause me to chuckle now. The storms of 1994 are now little more than gentle breezes in my memory. It is partly because I made good decisions and avoided more than a few catastrophes, but it is mostly because I was focusing on my fear more than my faith. I was, like Peter, reaching out to Jesus, but not completely believing he wouldn't go down with me. Now I know better.

My prayer for myself (and for you) is that in 2034 we look on our fears and chuckle. But maybe these readings call us to look on our 2014 fears and have the same reaction. Jesus wouldn't have come down from the hills and walked on the water unless he knew he could save us and he knows that he can save us today. Let us live with the courage it takes to step out of the boat into uncertain waters and reach out to Jesus. Let us reach back when God reaches out to us.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading is from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. Here God promises everyone will have all that he needs, and without having to do anything. God advises his people not to worry about money, but instead have faith in God. The Gospel from Matthew recounts the miracle of the loaves and fishes. After teaching his followers, it was evening and Jesus' disciples suggested Jesus wrap things up so the listerners could go into the village to buy some food. Jesus instructs the disciples to feed the crowd, but the disciples only had five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus blesses the food, and it feeds the entire crowd (over 5,000 people). After they ate, there was still enough food to fill twelve baskets.

What would you do and how would you act if you knew you had enough? Now don't call me a Commmunist: I'm not talking about everyone making the same wage. What if you you woke up every morning knowing you have enough. Not too much or too little, but just enough.

But here's the problem: we can't see into the future. When we wake up every morning we don't know how much we'll need for the day. How much food. How much gas for the car. How much support. How much love.

This makes perfect sense: at least with the "stuff" in our life we take more than we need. We don't go to the grocery store first thing and get the food we need for the day (that would actually be prohibitively expensive to say nothing about a waste of time). We don't go to the gas station and put in enough gas for the day (imagine getting a last minute invitation to something we enjoy but don't have enough gas to go). We even have a name for this: we have a cushion in case something comes up.

And we have a word for people who have too much of a cushion: hoarders. This is certainly a disability and we can all agree that nobody needs every issue of the newspaper for the last 5 years or piles of empty TV dinners that fill an entire room. But how much is enough? Yes, most of us are pretty good at recycling newspapers and not keeping empty containers around the house, but are there "money hoarders?"

This past year Kobe Bryant, who plays shooting guard on the Los Angeles Lakers Basketball Team, was paid $23.5 million. If this was all he was paid in his entire life and he lived to be 80 years old, he would still make $293,750 per year for his entire life, from cradle to grave. Does this make him a money hoarder?

I know there are complicated reasons for somone to sign a contract like that. An economist would argue (correctly) that he made that money because the Lakers believe he brings that much value to the team and the team will make it up by fans who pay to watch him play and buy his merchandise. Competition also plays a role. Kobe has bragging rights to being the highest player in the National Basketball Association. And in fairness he plays every game knowing that he could suffer a career ending injury that will make him worthless to the Lakers.

But on the other hand, really? He's just shy of his 36th birthday and there is no way he'll even be able to spend all the money he has, let alone need all the money he has. I don't mean to pick on him because God knows he's far from the only person who makes an obscene amount of money. But how much of a cushion does he need? What is he afraid of?

It's unlikely I'll ever meet Kobe, but if I did I'd like to show him today's first reading from Isaiah. Isaiah writes this to a community that has returned from exile and is allowed back into their promised land. As joyful as they were they feared it would all be taken away from them. They recognized that prosperity is not guaranteed and this leads easily to fear that it could all be taken away again. This fear, while understandable, can lead to hoarding.

I think the point of the first reading is to lead us away from hoarding and leading us toward faith. God is clear here that God will take care of us. All who are thirsty can come to the water, not just the rich. All can eat grain, even those with no money. God has promised us this. I think God would tell Kobe that he will be cared for, even without his millions.

But how will God care for him (and us)? Will water and grain fall from God out of the sky? Or will our needs be cared for by other people who recognize our need and their surplus?

I'm certain I'm not the only person whose parents are part of the Greatest Generation, who not only lived through but thrived through the Great Depression. There's a danger in overly romanticizing the depression but there was a sense of "we're all in this together." Those who had a little more than they needed shared with those who had a little less than they needed. In my own family there was a story of a family of two parents, two sons, and two daughters in a small house with three bedrooms. The two boys shared a room that we would think of as little more than a broom closet, but when a friend of theirs needed to move away from his alcoholic father, they put a bed in their room and invited him to move in. I'm not sure if they saw themselves as having a little more room than they needed, but they certainly saw their friend as someone who had a little less than he needed.

But maybe the key word here is "little." We can easily help someone who has a little less than us, but can we just as easily help someone who has a great deal less than us? Can Kobe easily help someone with nothing? More to the point can he give someone else so much as to make them equal? I seriously doubt this.

And that is my primary concern these days. We've been hearing much about something called the "inequality gap." It's a sufficiently complicated term that there is no standard way to measure it, but I think that the greater the gap, the harder it is to bridge the gap.

And I don't think the Gospel can be fully understood without the first reading. For many years I've read the famous "loaves and fishes" reading as the miracle of the empty basket. The disciples reached into a basket of five loaves and two fish and pulled out a loaf or a fish, and their hands were magically filled with a loaf or a fish. No matter how many times they reached in.

But what if it wasn't like that? What if the basket really did start and end with five loaves and two fish? What if the crowds were fed with food that they all brought? What if the wealthy brought more than they needed and the poor brought less? What if the message Jesus proclaimed made them look at each other with new eyes? What if no new loaves and fishes were created out of nothing, but instead they reached out to each other and shared so that everyone had just enough? Wouldn't that be a miracle? Wouldn't that be something worth noting?

We don't know what Jesus taught that day but I like to think that he told them that while they all belong to God, they also belong to each other. I like to think that Jesus spoke of the duty we all have to each other. And I like to think he reminded them that as a crowd, as a nation, as a world, and as a Kingdom, we are all at our best when we have exactly what we need. No more and no less.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading is from the First Book of Kings. Here Solomon has inherited the throne from his father David. He will now rule over all Israel and fill the large shoes of his father. God promises to give Solomon whatever he wants. Solomon, recognizing the responsibilites he now faces, asks God for "an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong." God delights in his answer and promises to give Solomon "a heart so wise and understanding that there has never been anyone like you up to now, and after you there will come no one to equal you." In Matthew's Gospel Jesus speaks in metaphors about the kingdom of heaven. He compares it to buried treasure, or a pearl of great price. He also speaks of a net full of fish which is then sorted into good fish and bad fish; he compares this to angels who will separate the wicked from the righteous and throw the wicked into a furnace.

OK, can I say this? This Gospel reading has always made me uncomfortable. I love the idea that Jesus tells us what the Kingdom of God is like, but but I'm troubled by what he says. So this guy finds buried treasure on someone else's land and buys the land. Does anyone else think this is insider trading? Am I the only one who feels for the poor guy who sells the land only to find later that he has been had? Is the guy who took advantage of him really being held up as someone we should attain to? Or the guy who sells all he has to buy a pearl; does the seller really know how much the pearl is worth? If so, what has the buyer has gained?

I have to confess a certain interest in the science of economics. This has probably ruined my understanding of this Gospel, but I can't help myself. Economics is basically the science of how scarce resources are distributed. We deal with this all the time. Is there a water shortage? Water is going to be more expensive. Did the patent on my heart medication expire? Cool, all the generics now on the market will drive the price down and I'll pay less for it. And often, at least in the short run, winners and losers are being determined. In this scene the landowner becomes the loser because he didn't know he had the proverbial buried treasure. We can extend this to the dragnet the fishermen cast; he catches a bunch of fish, keeps the good fish and throws away the bad fish. Of course, if you're one of the fish you pretty much lose out. If you're dead it doesn't matter of you're eaten or thrown away.

I think too often we look at this gospel through those eyes. How do I make sure I'm one of the winners? At the end of the day how do I know I'll be one of the "good fish?" It's almost as if there is a quota system and we need to rank high enough to get it. And in our competitive world we see it all around us. When I was in seminary at Catholic University one of my professors grumbled to me that the theology library was often empty while the neighboring law school library had its lights on most of the night. He complained that we should have the same work ethic as the law students. I reminded him that the law students weren't working that hard to make the world better or more holy. They worked that hard because they were ranked according to grades and after graduation would get a better, more lucrative job with a high rank. Suffice it to say he did not apprciate my insight.

But if we use these same ideas of competition and scarce resources when we think of the Kingdom of Heaven, what are we doing? We increase our rank by either our success or another's failure. I'm ahead of you if either I'm better or you're worse and it doesn't matter which is which. The guy who discovers the hidden treasure ends up on the better end of the deal regardless of whether he is smarter or the landowner is careless.

But let's look elsewhere: let's look at our friend Solomon from the first reading. When I was in CCD (Catholic Sunday School) as a child I think this was the reading my teachers liked the best. They even liked this better than the parable of the talents. They would wax eloquent about how Solomon could have asked for anything but chose wisdom. He could have asked for a new bike or 4 more weeks of summer vacation, or a color TV set. Remember, this was the 1960s.

But instead he asked for wisdom. He asked for something that would make him a better king. He asked for "an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong." I don't say this often, but I think my teachers back then were spot on. There was certainly an element of them wanting us students to feel guilty over wanting a new bike or color TV, but Solomon's request was profound on a few levels.

The first aspect that impresses me is that he asked for something for himself. He didn't ask that God smite everyone who disagrees with him. He didn't ask that God form the minds of all the people so they will agree with him. I think we'd all like it if everyone agreed with us but what is gained if that agreement comes only because disagreement is not allowed? Are you really a leader if your people are commanded to follow? Instead he asks something for himself: help me be a wise leader. Help me know what to do in difficult situations. And by helping me be a better leader everyone wins. The people are served by a leader who is wise and good, and I win by leading a good nation.

The other aspect that impresses is that his gift of wisdom doesn't take away from anyone else, and in fact helps everyone else. Back to economics and scarce resources: if he had asked for wealth, that meant someone else would have less wealth. If I got a new bike or a color TV it meant someone else went to the store and found it was sold out. Solomon's gift of wisdom does not remove part of the "wisdom of the world," it's infinite.

I like to think of the Kingdom of God that way: it's infinite. We compete with so many things in our world, but does that mean we have to be so competitive? In our relationships with each other perhaps we can spend less time waiting for the other person to "get it" and see that we've been right all the time and more time thinking how we can be more inclusive.

And I think this applies to how we see our faith. I'm struck these days by how fellow Christians look at each other and believe that God cannot save everyone. I'm not calling anyone out, but is it possible that there is a place in salvation for Catholcis and Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and Jews and Muslims and atheists? Asking for wisdom, like asking for kindness and generosity does not decrease a scarce resource, it increases it.

And so my thanks to Solomon for asking for wisdom, and my teachers for pointing that out, and the law students at Catholic University to gave me the insight into competition that looks more noble than it is.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: Our first reading comes from the Old Testament book of Wisdom (it's one of the books that Catholics recognize but Protestants and Jews do not). The writer is glorifying God and speaks of His justice coming not from a place of strength but instead a place of mercy. By using his power this way we are all taught we are to exerise our justice with mercy. Matthew's Gospel continues with last week's theme of wheat. Here the just farmer plants his good seed, but in the middle of the night his enemy came and planted weeds. When both wheat and weeds begin to grow, the farmer's servents ask what to do. He told them not to pick the weeds now for fear of pulling out the wheat with it. Instead wait until the harvest when the wheat and weeds can be more easily separated. The wheat will become part of the harvest while the weeds will be burned.

Sometimes I think Jesus uses subtle humor to make his point. In the 18th Chapter of Matthew's Gospel he speaks of the good shepherd who abandons his flock to find one who has gone astray; I think it makes his point that God cares about all of us, even the most foolish. But any shepherd to leaves his flock to find one who wandered off is not long for his profession. Sheep, being sheep, will all wander off while he is looking for the one. In the same way we have a farmer who has weeds growing among his crop. Granted I'm not a farmer, but how can he have a successful harvest if his wheat is competing with weeds for water and nutrients? And how competent are his workers if they can't tell the difference between wheat and weeds until they are harvested? It seems to me that nearly everyone I know who likes to garden talks about weeding to make the garden prettier and more successful.

In any case, what do we make of these readings? If the first reading and the Gospel are paired, what is the intersection of these readings? I have to tell you that I stared at the readings for a few days scratching my head over this. I've ended up going down a particular road here that I've frankly never heard before. Then again, that's what you sign on for when you read my writings.

I've always had a soft place in my heart for the Book of Wisdom and it saddens me that it is not universally accepted among Jews and Christians. It's often called "The Wisdom of Solomon" even though it was certainly written several hundred years after the death of King Solomon. It talks about Wisdom in words that are far different from the realities of that time (or ours).

In our relationships with each other God has chosen a different playbook from the very beginning. Left to our own devices, power is to be exercised, justice is to be meted out impersonally, and mercy is often seen as somehow a little wimpy. And if not wimpy, at least ineffective: if we show mercy in justice that will only encourage others to be disobedient in the future.

But in this first reading that while "justice has its source in strength, your sovereignty over all makes you lenient to all." This is stating the obvious, but God is the final word on power and justice and mercy (and love and joy and countless other things). Because God has no equal, he need not fear any threats to His power. I know this is a stretch, but the powerful people I respect are the ones who also do not fear threats to their power. They exercise their power with a quiet confidence that does not call attention to themselves.

I see the farmer in the Gospel in that light. I'm not sure why he has an enemy. Maybe it's someone who wants his land and hopes will be foreclosed. Maybe he's an enemy because of some conflict between the two. In any case he does something that's just plain destructive and mean: he poisons the man's fields. But faced with this, he does not do what is expected. He does not instruct his servants to aggressively pull out the weeds, even if it means some of the wheat will be sacrificed. Instead he takes the long view and allows the weeds to germinate and grow, knowing that as the wheat and weeds grow they will be easier to differentiate. He takes the calm, not the knee jerk, response.

This is the part that may be a stretch but I call them as I see them. When I look at our lives today, is there a way we can see this parable in a modern light? What are the wheat and weeds in our lives today?

In many ways we are in a much better place today than ancient times. When we think about who has power over us, we've often had some input into who these people are. We have choices (limited perhaps, but choices) in where we work and live. We are not told what we have to do for work, nor are we commanded to live in a particular village for the rest of our life. In the political arena we choose out leaders (or at least vote for them).

But with these freedoms comes the need to have information, and correct information and the more I read this parable, the more I see our "information age" through the lens of this Gospel. If we see truthful information as the wheat and false information as the weeds I think we can see how hard it is to find the wheat for the weeds sometimes. In the quest for power we find those who tell us the truth and those who don't. What do we do with the ones who don't?

Alas, we have found through endless examples that sometimes people seek power to serve while others seek power for their own gain. I don't wish to make this a political screed, though I can't imagine anyone doesn't know my political leanings from my writings. But I kept coming back to one example that I think illustrates this well: the now famous "Death Panels." When the Affordable Care Act was debated and passed in 2009 there was a provision where you could meet with your doctor once per year to discuss decisions that you may need to make if you get sick. Do you want to be placed on a ventilator (respirator) if you can't breathe on your own? If your heart stops as the result of a disease or chronic condition do you want CPR? It was an attempt for all of us to get correct information before it becomes an emergency and while we are still able to make our own decisions. Shortly after this, opponents of the ACA latched onto something called "death panels." They argued that this provision was instead something more sinister: all of us, like it or not, would be forced to appear before panels of bureaucrats who would decide if we lived or died. Unfortunately this took on some traction because it was successful in creating fear. It was an excellent weed.

I use this example because I think almost all of us are familiar with it. Many people opposed the ACA, and while I support it, I understand that there are good reasons others don't. But I find it frustrating that instead of having a rational discussion and choosing leaders based on who articulates the better plan, we have those who crave power and are happy to choke off the wheat to get it. We have a local author in San Diego, Chris Witt, who wrote an excellent book titled Real Leaders Don't Use Powerpoint. He is a speech consultant and coach and describes an encounter with a politician. This politician asked for help in answering a difficult question he was expecting. Chris told him to articulate what he believes and Chris would help him craft an answer. The politician then turned to his staff and asked "Where do I stand on this?"

We can all wring our hands on this issue, but the challenge of this Gospel is in how we react. There are two ways we shouldn't react, and one way we should.

The first way we shouldn't react is pure revenge. The farmer in this parable had no desire to poison his enemy's fields. All that will do is hurt both of them, but I think for most of us that is our first knee jerk reaction. "Pain? I'll show you pain. I'll make sure you'll never mess with me again." The answer to the charge of death panels is not make up lies in response.

The second way is perhaps more appealing, and it's the way the farmer elected not to do. He didn't wade out into the field and start pulling little regard for the damage he could be doing to his own crops. The answer to the death panels charge is not to get into a shouting match that devolves into an exchange of insults (though this is the preferred option of the 24 hour news cycle).

The answer is to take the long view, to speak the truth in a quiet, confident way. It's the recognition that all truth comes from and leads back to God, and that as wheat and weeds grow, the difference will grow more obvious. It's the recognition that those who lie and cheat to get ahead will ultimately fall victim to their own lies.

Granted I chose a hot political topic to illustrate the point but I think we see it all around us all the time. Is a coworker undercutting us to get our job? Speak your truth calmly. Don't put your boss in the position of having to choose between two squabbling kindergartners. Is someone gossiping to increase his/her own popularity? Don't gossip back, but be instead the person who rises above it. Are you running for office against someone who needs to ask his aids what he believes in? Then be the politician where nobody has to ask about your beliefs.

It's a hard road, and often a long road, but it's the road we are called to.

You can find the readings at here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading is from the later part of the book of Isaiah. Here God declares that just as rain falls on the earth and does not return without providing growth to the crops, so God's Word goes out and does not return without doing what it was meant to do. The Gospel from Matthew comprises the first part of the 13th chapter. Jesus uses parables to discuss how a farmer dows seeds on the ground but only the seeds that fall on fertile ground produce crops. When his disciples ask why he uses parables, Jesus explains that he uses parables so that only those that can hear will understand. He then explains the parable in terms of who can hear. Some seeds fall on the edge of the path where birds eat them. Others fall on rocks where they sprout but cannot grow roots; they wither. The ones who fall in thorns try to grow but then are choked off by the thorns. Finally, the seeds that fall on fertile ground grow and produce rich crops.

Anyone who has seen the play Godspell should remember this scene. Jesus plays the sower and the disciples play the seeds. Jesus casts the seeds in all directions and the fate of the disciples depends on where they land. Not to quibble with the genius of the writers of the play, I've always been a little troubled by this interpretation. If Jesus is the sower and we are the seeds, it appears to be the luck of the draw where we land. If you have the misfortune to land on a rock and I have the good fortune to land in fertile soil, do we both get what we deserve? Did Jesus know each of us well enough to know who should bear fruit and who shouldn't? Did Jesus really throw the seeds of bad people on rocks so that they wouldn't grow? That almost sounds like predestination to me.

It also doesn't sound like much else that Jesus talks about. Maybe the error here isn't that the disciples are the seeds, but the soil. Maybe Jesus is scattering his word (the seeds) everywhere and we can be hard (rocks) or contaminated (thorns) or welcoming (fertile). That seems to make more sense to me. If we are the ground we can decide how we (or weather) want to accept the seeds and allow them to grow.

I've said this before but I'm always a little leery about readings that assume basic understandings of farming or raising sheep. My concern rests in the awareness that the men and women of Jesus' time probably had this understanding, but we do not. Given this concern, let me weigh in on this question: if Jesus is spreading the seed, why does he waste seed on rocky or thorny ground? Wouldn't any farmer clear the rocks and weeds, or at least use only the areas with good soil? Even if he has only a finite amount of land, doesn't he also have a finite number of seeds?

I was reminded of this a few nights ago when I was watching TV and saw one of those "as seen on TV" commercials. They were advertising something called "Hydro Mousse Liquid Lawn" that promised to grow your lawn even in areas where grass didn't normally grow. They were a little fuzzy on the details of exactly how it worked (and if you go to their web page it gets miserable reviews) but wouldn't it make more sense for Jesus to use this?

Ok, all kidding aside, if we think of Jesus as the sower and ourselves as the ground (and the seeds as the word) we need to understand two things: Jesus has a limitless amount of seed, and he does not write off any of the soil. Did Jesus know ahead of time which seeds would bear fruit? I don't think anyone knows, but I like to think he didn't: it makes him seem more human to me, and more able to relate to our struggles.

In any case, if discipleship means that we are to do what Jesus did, I think we need to look at this parable more in terms of what we shouldn't pay attention to as to what we should. In other words we shouldn't do what any farmer would do and spread seeds only where we believe it will bear fruit. And we should do this because, let's face it, we're not all that good at deciding which soil is good.

I don't want to carry this seed/soil imagery too far and at the same time I don't want to define "spreading the word" too narrowly. Let me clarify this. When it comes to spreading the word, I don't mean that we all have to become preachers. We don't need to knock on doors or talk about Jesus to everyone we meet; certainly there are those who are called to do that, but I don't believe that describes most of us. But I do think we spread the word every time we do the right thing or show kindness and compassion. Whenever we hold a door open for someone trying to enter with a baby stroller or saying a kind word to a grocery store clerk who seems overwhelmed. Whenever we speak up for someone who is being marginalized or ignored. Whenever we make a point of thanking someone in uniform for his or her service.

But perhaps more important that this is our call to spread the seed regardless of the soil, or at least our interpretation of the soil. When I was a Paulist Priest we had a saying: "Never close the book on another Paulist." In other words don't decide you already know all about him. People change, they mature, and they become more willing to hear the word. And sometimes we're dead wrong about someone. Many years ago I was working with a parish youth group and became friends with one of the teens. He was incredibly smart and funny and we used to bike around the area. We never really talked about religion and I thought I knew about his spirituality because he was part of the youth group. At the end of my year there he confessed that he thought of himself as an atheist, but after seeing how I lived my life he understood the purpose of having a life of faith. I had been spreading seed without even knowing it, and had I known I likely would have written off his soil as too hard. I lost touch with him many years ago but I pray that my few kernels of seed still bloom.

As I was told never to close the book on another Paulist, I think that's a universal truth. Too often we "write someone off" because we assume we know what they will say or do. We use the phrase "blah, blah, blah" to cut them off from telling us what they want us to know. We talk past, around, or over them. I think that's wrong. I understand that oftentimes we're ignoring what they say because they are ignoring what we say, but not always. Sometimes the soil has become fertile when we weren't looking. And sometimes the newly fertile soil is ours.

You can find the readings at here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading is from the Old Testament prophet Zecharaiah. Through Zecharaiah, God proclaims wonderful news. About 20 years before this reading the Israelites were freed from their exile in Babylon. They were able to return home but their temple had been destroyed and they hadn't rebuilt it yet. God speaks of a new king that will come on a donkey and will banish chariots from Ephraim and horses from Jerusalem. He will ban war and proclaim peace for their entire empire. The Gospel comes from Matthew where Jesus speaks of gratitude to God for revealing truth to the children while hiding them from the learned. Jesus then invites all who labor and are burdened. God's yoke will find rest for the souls for this yoke is easy and the burden is light.

So what happens when our suffering ends? We've all been through times in our life when it seemed like everything was not going our way and we wondered if life would ever be good again. All we pray for in those times is a turnaround, something that happens that tells us that life is going to start getting better. When that happens what do we do?

Obviously we celebrate and rejoice for our good fortune. The after chemotherapy biopsy comes back clean. We get the job we have to get to make our finances stable again. Against all odds we get the prom date we didn't dare dreaming about. But what then? After we celebrate, after we exhale in relief, after we pass out the hugs we've been waiting for, how do we react to our good fortune?

In some ways this is the crux of the first reading. Zechariah is speaking to a community that is finally home after a long and horrible exile. Sixty five years earlier they saw their worst nightmare: they were conquered by the Babylonians, they were sent into exile, and (worst of all) their temple was destroyed. They lost their history and were not at all certain they would have a future. But then twenty years earlier the impossible happened: their conquerers were themselves conquered and the Israelites were allowed to return home.

But what then? They could hardly erase the forty five years they spent in Babylon but how do they look forward? It would make sense that the first thing they should do is rebuild the temple. But while they started to do that almost immediately, they appear to have stopped. Why? We are not sure, but in another book of the Old Testament (Haggai), God tells them that things cannot go back to normal until they do rebuild the temple. And eventually they do, but some are disappointed that it is not as grand as the first temple.

But maybe that's not such a bad thing. God spends part of the beginning of Zechariah telling his people that they were exiled in Babylon for their wickedness. They now have their freedom but God warns them not to return to their wickedness. Life must not return to the pre exile days because those days caused their exile. Going forward they need to be a little more humble, a little more concerned with the widow and orphan.

This is where we pick up this reading. God speaks of their king coming on a colt, the foal of a donkey. The king is not coming with a team of show horses, not coming with a show of force. And yet this king will not be lacking for strength and power: he will banish chariots from Ephraim and horses from Jerusalem. I've spoken of this before, but this is one of those details that can easily elude us. When we think of chariots we tend to think of the book and movie Ben Hur; they are large and intimidating things and they convey strength and domination.

And yet they are less powerful than a king on a colt. The image looks almost comical and yet, that is what we are told. Why? Part of it is the ongoing theme that all the powerful trappings a weaponry means nothing when facing God.

But maybe it's also a call to us to live with more humility and be less concerned with gaining the trappings of power. If there's one theme that weaves its way through Scripture it's that God is concerned with all of us, even the least of us. I once heard Jesus' line "the last shall be first" was essentially his mission statement. The image of the king coming on a colt, the foal of a donkey, calls us to look at Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday on just such a donkey.

Clearly we are not being called to trade in our chariot for a donkey, but are there ways to live that humility today? I suggest there are ways, but oftentimes our biggest obstacles are the very ways we practice our faith today. In the Gospel Jesus speaks of "hiding" his truth from the clever and revealing it to children. What is he talking about? Is he predicting the high pitch ringtones that high school students can hear but older teachers can't? Perhaps, but I don't think so.

Instead, I suspect, both the learned and the children get the same message, but only the children are listening. The people in Zechariah's audience, and followers of Jesus, were not the rich and beautiful. As a matter of fact, the followers of Jesus spent 300 years under various degrees of persecution, until the Roman emperor Constantine became a Christian.

And since then, by and large, we have not suffered for our faith. There are obvious exceptions to this, but at least in this country, being Christian does not cost us, and in some way it helps us (as a Muslim what it's like to not be a Christian in the US). One of the more insidious realities we've seen is the pass wealthy people get, against mountains of evidence in Scripture. Wealth isn't just money: sometimes it's influence or social standing, or access to resources. And unfortunately it's become acceptable to see those who lack this wealth as being what they deserve.

There was a 1986 movie about deaf children called Children of a Lesser God and I've always found that title compelling. The idea that deaf children are followers of a "lesser God" can only be termed "creative cruelty." Yes, I made that up. I don't think anyone seriously believes that deaf children are followers of a lesser God, but look around at how many of our fellow Christians follow a belief in something called the "gospel of wealth." The steel magnate Andrew Carnegie coined this term in 1889; he spoke of the responsibility of the wealthy to give to the poor. But I'm not the only one who has witnessed in the last 40 years the belief that wealth is a God given reward for faithfulness. Several years ago I worked for a church in a poor part of town. There was another Christian church adjacent to us where the pastor drove an expensive car. I was surprised and asked someone about it. His response surprised me: he said that this congregation expected their pastor to drive an expensive car and to be explicit about his wealth. They believed that God had blessed the congregation with wealth and the way to show God's love was to shower their pastor with material goods. To see the pastor buying his clothes at Costco or driving a used car is to announce that God was not blessing them.

I was aghast at this and I hope you are too. I thought about the parishioners who donated money they could hardly afford so that their pastor could drive a car they couldn't imagine ever owning. Every time I saw the car I thought about it as a chariot. I thought about the pastor as being one of the learned who didn't get the message.

I write this not out of a false sense of pride that God loved my broken down Toyota Carrolla more than his BMW. But I prayed then (and continue to pray now) that the poorest do not donate so that the wealth will look better, but that the wealthy will donate so the poor have enough. That the "gospel of wealth" returns to the idea that we all have enough.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: We return to the Acts of the Apostles for the first reading. King Herod has the apostle James killed and arrests Peter on the feast of Unleavened Bread (the feast that became Easter) with the intent to put him on trial. During the night, even under heavy guard, an angel comes and releases Peter. Only when he recognizes his freedom does Peter understand this wasn't a dream and praises God. Matthew's Gospel recounts Jesus speaking with his disciples. When he asks them who others think he is, they give various answers. Jesus then asks them who they think he is. Peter answers that Jesus is "the Christ, the Son of the Living God." Jesus affirms this answer and proclaims that Peter will be the rock on which the Church is built. Additionally Peter is given the keys to the Kingdom and whatever he binds on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever he looses on earth will be loosed in heaven.

I've spoken about this before, but I sometimes wonder what they were thinking when they chose readings for particular solemnities. I have some empathy for them as solemnities often celebrate beliefs or understandings we've come to after Scripture has been written.

In some ways we see this here. When we think about the first generation after Jesus' resurrection we can never move far from the twin pillars of Peter and Paul. Though they came from vastly different backgrounds and had a complicated relationship with each other we can hardly imagine what we would look like without them. Though they didn't always lead (or push) in the same direction, the Church moved in the direction it needed to.

But this has always raised a question for me: why don't each of them get his own day? Matthew has May 14th all by himself. So do the rest of the Gospel writers: April 25th is Mark, Luke owns October 18th, and John rocks December 27th. All by themselves. You'd think Peter and Paul would get just a little jealous.

OK so I can't give you any insight on what Peter and Paul think of sharing a day, but hopefully I can speak to why we celebrate them on the same day. It wasn't because they were the best of friends (they weren't) or came from the same place (they didn't) or had they same vision for this newly formed community (they really didn't).

Perhaps this is a good time to give a little background. The books of the Bible weren't necessarily written to give the answers we want, and there is a great deal we don't know about these men. We know Peter was married (Jesus healed his mother in law in the 8th chapter of Matthew's Gospel) and was a fisherman. He was one of the first disciples who followed Jesus, and almost from the start he was seen as the leader of Jesus' followers. He was a man of great passion, often making grand promises that he was not able to keep (he promised that he would never leave Jesus' side but later that night denied he even knew Jesus). Beginning with this Gospel we see Peter not only being named the leader of Jesus' followers but also Peter rising to the role. Because of this we now think of Peter as the first pope, though that would have been news to him.

Paul is a great deal more of an enigma. It's ironic as we have a pile of his writings, but he wrote very little about himself. We do know that he was a pharisee; by virtue of that he was a learned man and commanded a great deal of respect in his circles. He also came into the picture as one who persecuted the followers of Jesus. We see in Acts how he witnessed and approved the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. But we also read that while journeying to Damascus he had an encounter with Christ that transformed him from persecuter to an enthusiastic evangelist. Overnight he became an apostle. He claimed the title "apostle" even though he (as far as we know) never met Jesus while in human form. Paul made a point of stating that his encounter with Jesus was so powerful that he saw the resurrected Jesus and this allowed him to claim the title.

The meeting of the two should have happened almost immediately, but there was a complication. Paul wished to go to Jerusalem and join his new team, but they knew who he was and were justifiably afraid of him. Frankly I would be too and I can't imagine that Paul didn't know this.

I also wonder what Peter was thinking about all this. He was clearly the leader of this small group. Did he see Paul as an infiltrator? Probably not: the leader of a group makes a lousy spy. Or did he see Paul as a possible rival? That makes more sense. Paul was an influential and powerful man and though we don't normally see Peter as power hungry, it had to be part of the equation. After all, hadn't Jesus told Peter he was the rock on which the foundation would be built? Who is this guy anyway?

The real conflict between them comes in the next few chapters. One of the first questions Jesus' followers encountered was they very nature of their community. Like many new movements they were willing to welcome anyone who would listen and were loathe to turn away anyone (even Paul who approved Stephen's death). But if someone wants to become a follower of Jesus, must he first become a Jew? Or to make it more stark, must the Gentile (non Jewish) men be circumsized? James clearly said yes, Paul clearly said no, and Peter was in the middle. You can read about this in Galatians chapter 2 and Acts chapter 15, but Paul really dresses down Peter for trying to straddle the middle. It worked because Peter ended up agreeing with Paul. I've often wondered how often in the last 2000 years we've had someone who had the courage to approach the Pope and speak truth to power (though I suspect it's easier with our current Pope than his immediate predecessors.

I read this incident not as something bad, a conflict that needed resolution, but something good and necessary for the growth of the church. The tension between Peter and Paul allowed all to see that the Holy Spirit works not just through individuals, but in the encounters between believers, even believers who disagree. The idea that someone can reprove the Pope tells me that the Spirit uses whoever the Spirit chooses. If Peter had rebuked Paul, or threatened to dismiss him, then maybe our church would look different. If all power and authority came from just one person, we might have seen Peter and the office of the Pope differently. This may be a stretch, but instead of Popes being successors to Peter, Peter could have been seen as the successor of Jesus. Think about all the tyrants in our history who have claimed to be raised to the level of deity. If nobody rebuked Peter, that could have happened to us.

Peter and Paul built the foundation not because they liked each other or had the same vision of the church. They succeeded because they both sought the same thing: the church we have now. Not vilifying each other, but working in complement. We speak of collegiality, of all having access to the Holy Spirit, because Peter listened to the Holy Spirit when the Spirit told him to listen to Paul. I suspect they share the same feast day because the needed each other, even if they didn't recognize it.

I'm guessing I'm not alone in drawing a line between these encounters and what we see with out secular leaders today. I feel that too often we are led by men and women who do not see their role to serve but to gain power. In that paradigm, those who disagree are enemies. If they win, we lose. How often have we been told that members of Congress are specifically told not to be seen with members of another party? Or told that compromise or creative solutions are signs of weakness? I could run down this road for a long, long time, but I don't think I need to. I'd like our leaders to see how Peter and Paul made us who we are by listening instead of shouting. Feel free to forward this to anyone you think might benefit.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading is from the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy. It begins by recounting that after the Exodus, God guided the Israelites for 40 years through the desert, and how God afflicted them with hunger and gave them manna. They had never seen mannah, and God did this so they would understand that nobody lives by bread alone, but also by God's word. In John's Gospel Jesus speaks of his flesh as the living bread from heaven. Further, only by eating this bread and drinking Jesus' blood can anyone have eternal life. Like mannah, it has come from heaven, but all those who ate mannah eventually died. Anyone who eats Jesus flesh will not die.

All this talk about bread? First mannah in the desert and then Jesus body in unleavened bread? Doesn't anyone care about carbs anymore? And don't even get me started on gluten. Does God even care about our health? Isn't God aware of gluten insensitivity or celiac disease?

OK, maybe this just a bit of hyperbole but I think it raises a good point. We live in a place and a time where bread is all around us, where we can take it for granted. Think about the bread aisle in the grocery store. We can find bread of different shapes, flavors, and sizes. We can even get Biblical bread: Ezekiel Bread that claims a biblical recipe (full disclosure: I've never tried the stuff).

But if we are to understand today's readings, and today's solemnity, we need to understand that this begins in starvation. God is speaking to the Israelites to remind them that when they were liberated out of Egypt, they were going into an austere and severe land. We think of it as a desert, and older translations called it the wilderness. In any case they left Egypt under dire circumstances with only a promise that God will lead them into the "promised land." They didn't know anything about it and certainly did not work out the details of how to get there. Hungry and desperate they must have wondered what to do next.

And in their wonder God gave them mannah. Some biblical scholars have long sought to find an answer, a way this mannah could have appeared naturally, enraging other biblical scholars who insist that it came from God and God alone. I'm not going to enter into this debate because I don't think it matters. What matters is that the Israelites didn't starve, and they made it to the promised land because God gave them what they needed.

It was important back then (and today) that we understand that they got what they needed and that it came from God. They didn't stumble upon it or invent it themselves. I find this important as a counterpoint to the too often belief that we can be self sufficient. Nothing can be further from the truth. We live in a time where we revere the "self made man or woman." Someone who can provide whatever is needed in any situation and sees charity as weakness. Ultimately they are fooling themselves. None of us is self made and at some point in our lives we will need to depend on the generosity of others who are not offended by our selfishness.

For all of human history there have been fluctuations in food sources: a bumper crop here, a famine there. But at the same time we live in a global economy that has tremendous ability to move food around. It should be easy and based on need, but it's not. Too often it's based on the matching of who has the food with who has the wealth to purchase it. Though it does't say so explicitly, I have to believe that when they were dividing up the mannah, Moses did not get a larger share. All had what they need. I wish that were so today. I recognize the irony in saying this (please look at a recent picture of me), but we live in a country with an obesity crisis and a world with a nutritional crisis. Even in our own nation we have to constantly fight to preseve subsidized school lunchs, food stamps, and hundreds of other programs that hope to end hunger. For many of us (and, I suspect, anyone who is reading this), hunger is not a fear; not because there is enough food for all, but that we have gotten a place in line that ensures it won't run out until we are fed.

So what do we do about this? I suggest that the answer is found in the Gospel. There are more than enough references to Jesus' body being a continuation of mannah that I don't need to recount it. This "body of Christ" is now more commonly known as Communion or Eucharist.

I'm going to tread lightly here because this solemnity means different things to different Christians. For many, weekly worship does not include passing blessed bread; it might be monthly or even annually. To Catholics it means a great deal more: the celebration of the Eucharist is the center of all worship. Only a priest can consecrate the bread, and until I was a teenager, only a priest could touch it (he would put the bread directly on our tongues and we were instructed to swallow it whole).

As a lifelong Catholic I've always revered the Eucharist, but there is a sense where our desire to take this seriously has led us in strange directions. One of these is a particular concern of mine: the use of the Eucharist as a tool to keep people in line, sometimes in inconsistent ways. We all have stories of people who left unhealthy marriages and entered into life giving ones who were blocked from receiving Communion. It was said to prevent scandal, but I find that wanting. I find it more palatable that it was used as a way of preventing divorce, or at least remarriage. I was heartened last year with Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation The Joy of the Gospel. In a section entitled "A Mother with an Open Heart" he says this: "The Eucharist, although it is the fullness of sacramental life, is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak." It is when we are most in need that we should find ourselves first in line for the Eucharist.

Because that is what Jesus had in mind. In his own words in this Gospel he talked about how mannah saved the starving in the desert, but did not give them eternal life. In other words Eucharist in a continuation and expansion of mannah: as God gave the Israelites what they needed to survive the desert, Jesus gives us what we need to survive not just this crisis, but all crises.

But Eucharist means nothing if it doesn't mean that we are all in this together. Until recently many Catholics have read this gospel too narrowly and advanced the belief that since only Catholic can receive the Eucharist, and only individuals who receive Eucharist can be saved, only Catholic are in heaven. That simply cannot be. Just as the mannah was evenly divided, Eucharist in the early church was evenly divided, open to all who sought it. Eucharist also isn't a "passport to heaven," something you need to get through the pearly gates. If that were true, we'd only need to receive once in our lifetime. Instead, it is the cure to starvation that allows us to see beyond ourselves to others who are starving.

And finally, Eucharist isn't "super mannah" but it does reach out and nourish a starving people. As we look around us at a world that too often rewards greed, turns a blind eye to violence, and allows for starvation, we can see our need. Reception of the Eucharist, however we believe it, opens our eyes. We share Eucharist because it allows ourselves to look into the eyes of others and see what we are starving for.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading returns to the Old Testament. It's from Exodus and requires a little background. Shortly before this reading Moses had gone up to Mt. Sinai where God gave hime the tablets with the 10 Commandments. On returning to the Israelites, Moses found that they had created the image of a golden calf, in clear violation of God's command to not worship graven images. In his rage Moses destroyed the tablets. The people repent and God instructs Moses to cut two new stone tablets. Our reading begins with this as Moses is speaking with God and asks God to forgive the people. John's Gospel shows Jesus speaking with Nichodemus. He begins with the well known phrase "God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in hiim may not be lost but may have eternal life." Jesus goes to say that nobody who believes in Jesus will be condemned but anyone who refuses to believe is already condemned.

I've always been a little amused when I get the question "What do you do?" The reality is that I do any number of things. I work, I play, I watch baseball games, and I try to find the holiness in all I see (that's still a work in progress).

In reality this question, at least in social situations, means "what is your job?" Truthfully, when I do get that question I answer that I'm a hospice chaplain because I don't want to be known as "the weird guy" the next morning.

But it does raise an interesting point. So often we define ourselves not even in what we do but what we produce, what we tangibly contribute. There's an old adage "a man is what a man does" and it's not limited to just men.

When I think of the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity I like to think of it as a counterpoint to that. Now I'll be the first to admit that talking about the Trinity should cause anyone pause. Most (but not all) Christians confess a belief in "Three Persons and One God" but get tied up in the details. St. Patrick famously used the three leaf clover to explain the Trinity and I have to confess that if I had been one of the people he tried to bring to Christianity I'd have found this confusing. I do remember as a child finding great glee in watching adults try to explain this to me.

And candidly, I find no help in the readings. There is almost nothing in Scripture to guide us in this belief but today's passages from Exodus and John provide no help. When I was in seminary the rector told us that if we choose not to preach on the solemnity we can always choose to preach on the readings instead. Yeah, I guess I wouldn't be me if I didn't take the harder path just to see where it leads.

I'm also aware that while many Christian denominations profess a belief in this Trinity, few of them have devoted much thought to it, primarily the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. I think it's probably because all the really good fights on the meaning of the Trinity were well completed by the Protestant Reformation and the reformers had much more current battles to fight.

And without giving a blow by blow description of how this was such a hot issue while the Roman Empire was crumbling and the Dark Ages were marching in, let me say this: the hot button issues back then were the relationships between the three persons: Father, Son, and Spirit; unfortunately I think much of the debate was over rankings and didn't speak to the love they all have for each other.

But it is that love for each other that I find compelling in the Trinity. The love they have for each other informs and directs the love that we are called to show each other. It's a love that does not go only from giver to acceptor, but exists in the space between and feeds both.

I began this by talking about the question "What do you do." Sometimes we hear the question "Who are you with?" Sometimes it's a generous question: perhaps we're at a social gathering where someone who cares about us sees us with someone new and wants to meet this new person. That's wonderful when it happens but sometimes it can take on a harder edge. Sometimes it can point to a sense of exclusion; it can mean "Do you belong here?" When that happens and we feel excluded I think it casts a shadow on what we are called to do.

I said earlier that I don't find much connection between the readings and our topic today, but I feel that I can't look at John's Gospel without saying something about that exclusion. The first line of the Gospel is the famous "John 3:16" and if you've ever watched a football game on TV you're familiar with it. It's a wonderful passage about God's love for us embodied in the person of Jesus and how this is the path to salvation. But I think we sometimes twist the next part about those who refuse to believe. Without wandering too far off the path I find that sometimes we use this to divide up the world between "who is in" and "who is out" (and of course setting it up to make sure we are in). Belief in Jesus is not about the bumper stickers on our cars or what uniform we wear. We don't get to say that someone is beyond our care because they disagree with us. I fear sometimes that this passage is used to allow us to see others and "them" and not part of "us."

And alas, I see that happening more and more. An army psychiatrist opens fire and kills several of his fellow service members. We find out that he is Muslim and then argue that we shouldn't allow any Muslim to serve in uniform. Two people of the same sex wish to find the joy and permanence of marriage that heterosexual couples have been able to take for granted, and suddenly we think they are after our children.

This all happens because we don't look to the Trinity. It happens because we choose fear over love and believe we need to protect "us" from "them" when we don't even know them. Last week humanity lost a wonderful soul in Maya Angelou. In many ways she personified what I'm talking about. Her book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is evocative in its very title. She was often seen as them: Woman. Black. Several Times Married. Friends with Malcolm X. But she never saw herself as them, nor anyone else. In her writing and speaking she strived always to love and to use that love as a bond between us. May we continue to learn what she taught, and may we continue to see the Trinity as love.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: In the first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles, Luke speaks of the apostles being gathered in one room when wind and fire came in, and a tongue of fire appeared over each of the apostles. When this happened, everyone could understand everyone, even when they spoke in different languages. They were amazed by this. The Gospel begins with Jesus' followers being locked in a room "for fear of the Jews" when the resurrected Jesus appears and breathes on them. Jesus tells them that they have the power to forgive sins, or refuse to forgive sins.

The Solemnity of Pentecost holds a special place in my heart: 20 years ago I was preaching on this solemnity at Our Lady of Angels Church in Woodbridge, Virginia. A week earlier I had been ordained a priest and according to custom I went back to the church where I grew up to celebrate my "first mass."

In talking about this first reading from the Acts of the Apostles I imagined that the Apostles must have felt overwhelmed by this experience. A powerful wind from heaven, tongues of fire over their heads, and the ability to understand all the languages of the world. It must have been ecstatic, otherworldly. And then they slowly, slowly came to the realization that there was a great deal of work to do. As a newly ordained priest I spoke of having a new understanding of that feeling.

If the first reading was the ecstasy, then at least the beginning of the Gospel was the agony. It's a completely different scene: inside, behind locked doors, in fear. I'm focusing on the first line of the Gospel at least in part because it's been one of the most misused lines in all of Scripture and some explanation is in order.

The Gospel of John was the last of the four Gospels to be written, probably around the year 90. It was also written in the middle of a painful period in history. From the time of Jesus' resurrection around the year 33, his disciples proclaimed that he was the messiah they had all been waiting for. As you can imagine some believed Jesus was the messiah and some didn't. So now, nearly 60 years into this, the communities are splitting apart. More to the point the followers of Jesus were expelled from the Temple. They felt persecuted by those who did not follow Jesus and did not want to leave the Temple; they felt that they were cast adrift.

Unfortunately this and other passages have been used to justify anti-Semitism ever since. The phrase "for fear of the Jews" has been taken horribly out of context and has been used to justify everything from the Crusades to the Holocaust. I'm writing this in hopes that writings like this will eventually overcome the sinister view that we still need to fear the Jews.

And so let us take the anti-Semitism out of this Gospel reading and talk about the agony. Twenty years ago, at my ordination, I felt tremendous joy. Since then I've had a few experiences that were just the opposite. Times when I've wondered if anything I did made a difference, if what I did had any value, or there was any reason to go on. Fortunately those experiences have been fleeting and rare, but no less real.

But most of these last twenty years have been neither. They've been "ordinary time." Ordinary time sounds a little boring, but I suggest it's not. It's the time when we recognize that we do have value, but we're not the messiah. It's the time when we see that life is good but not perfect. It's the time . . .that sometimes we long for the ecstasy and fear the agony.

I know this may be a unique and unfamiliar look at Pentecost, but it's also the traditional move in the Christian calendar from Easter to Ordinary time. And so, every year we must even if there is a part of us that doesn't want to.

If we think about this on a less religious plane maybe it makes more sense. Think about the last day of vacation. It's been a wonderful time and much as we love our ordinary life, we board the plane with just a little sadness. Though we know it's impossible, we'd like to think of being able to have a permanent vacation. Intellectually we know that we'd eventually tire of the endless ocean breezes, never ending Mai Tai's, and no alarm clock, we'd like to try it. Much as we would like to try, we really can't live ecstasy all the time.

We also see this, and perhaps to a greater degree, in our children. We laugh about this, but do we give out trophies to everyone because we don't want anyone to miss out? When we abandon the idea of rewarding outstanding performance for the sake of making everyone feel good, I think we've lost something. I think we've lost the idea that playing on a team (be it the chess club or the baseball team) is ordinary time and ecstasy is a wonderful, fleeting experience. And those agony moments, sacrificing your queen to get his pawn or striking out with the bases loaded, are all part of the experience, and are (hopefully) rare.

But perhaps more insidious than that is the steps we take to avoid the agony. We all can think of times in our lives where we've huddled in fear, times when we didn't think we had the strength to keep going, times when the future looked bleak. And while we can look back on bad times and see the good that came out of them, we almost never look ahead to see what we can learn from current bad times. We try, as much as we can, to avoid these experiences.

I think about how many people I know who stay in jobs they don't like because they are afraid that the next job will be worse. I also think we know people who stay in unhealthy relationships out of fear that this is the best they will ever have? Do we dare not try something we want out of fear that it will not turn out?

And if we put too much effort into giving ecstasy experiences to our children, I think we're even worse in trying to stave off agony experiences. We even have a name for ourselves: helicopter parents. For the unaware, the term "helicopter parents" is a term for parents who try to shield their (often adult) children from bad experiences. They write essays for their teenage children and hire people to help them complete college applications. Some have even been known to accompany their adult children on job interviews.

There is certainly nothing wrong with protecting our children, and I'm sure the parents of Jesus' first disciples worried about them following this man who claimed to be God. But we need to understand that our life is all three: fleeting experiences of ecstasy and agony, and long stretches of ordinary time.

And so let us return to ordinary time. I think we need to rehabilitate the word "ordinary." Years ago I remember commenting that a woman I had met was attractive. I was with a woman friend who was surprised and thought the woman looked ordinary ("plain Jane" was the phrase she used). I suggested to her that there is beauty in the ordinary, at least beauty I could see. I see ordinary as the balance, the place between the poles. Perhaps it's not a place of great excitement but it is (hopefully) a place of contentment. It's a place where we can our lives for what they are: far from perfect, but doing OK.

In that heady experience in the first reading the apostles weren't given the Holy Spirit so that the rest of their lives would be ecstatic, nor that the bad times would disappear. They were given the Holy Spirit to make ordinary time good.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading from Acts takes place directly after Jesus rises from their eyes into the clouds (this is called the Ascension). They go back to Jerusalem (a "sabbbath walk," about half of a mile). There they joined the others (including Jesus' mother Mary) and joined in continuous prayer. John's Gospel takes place shortly before Jesus is arrested. The entire reading is a prayer from Jesus to God where Jesus raises his eyes to heaven. He speaks of knowing that the hour has come for his glorification and that he (Jesus) has fulfilled his role of revealing himself to his followers and they have accepted his teaching.

On January 20, 1961 a 43 year old man named John Kennedy took the oath of office and became our country's 36th President. He was the youngest man to be elected President and in his inaugural address he announced that "the torch has been passed to a new generation."

It had indeed been passed. President Kennedy was 27 years younger than his predecessor, and as a matter of fact Eisenhower had a child born the same year as Kennedy. To the old establishment it must have seemed that this young wealthy upstart had no business holding that office.

Nikita Khrushchev, the ruler of the Soviet Union, was one such person. He was four years younger than Eisenhower and he thought the United States was crazy and even a little weak in selecting Kennedy. But a year and half later, Khrushchev was outmaneuvered when Kennedy was successful in forcing the Soviet Union to remove nuclear weapons from Cuba. People of a certain age, and students of history, will remember that this was the time when the US and USSR came closest to destroying the world with nuclear weapons. You have to think Khrushchev thought that he didn't think Kennedy had it in him.

I think of that as I read today's readings. This past Thursday we celebrated the Ascension where Jesus, after several appearances to his apostles, rose from their midst into a cloud and disappeared. Today's Gospel shows how the apostles then returned to Jerusalem and began the life that we all live today: in the resurrection but before the return of Jesus (sometimes referred to as the "already/not yet").

I've spoken of this before but I'm amazed at how well this rag tag group embraced the mantle of this new era so well. It's ridiculously easy to read much of the Gospels through the eyes of "can't these guys get anything right? They don't understand what Jesus is saying, or they compete for a higher place in Jesus entourage, or they run away when Jesus is arrested.

So how did this happen? How did these men and women almost overnight turn into the group that began to preach and teach, performed miracles, and laid the foundation to the faith that we have all inherited?

Part of that is seen in today's Gospel. I have to confess a little amusement when I read of Jesus praying to God aloud, in front of his followers. Why is he doing that? Is it to impress his followers with his mastery of the craft of prayer? Is it to impress God? In this case I think he is praying aloud because he wants his followers to know what he thinks of them. He says this: "I have made your [God's] name known to those you took from the world to give me. They were yours and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now at last they know that all you have given me comes indeed from you; for I have given them the teaching you gave me, and they have truly accepted this, that I came from you, and have believed that it was you who sent me.

While I've often thought John could have used an editor, I believe the message here is clear: Jesus, under the vehicle of prayer, is telling his followers that they have succeeded in becoming who they were supposed to be. Jesus is telling them that they will lead.

But there's another part that I think is more important: In events like the Road to Emmaus and Pentecost we see Jesus' followers infused with power and authority that comes not from themselves but from God. They are chosen not (we think) because God is impressed with their work. God chooses what God chooses and it often does not make sense to the rest of us. But that does not make it less God chosen. In the absence of understanding we are called to have faith.

Put another way we should look at these first apostles through the eyes of ordinary people of their time. "Really? Peter? They guy who keeps getting things wrong? Mary Magdalene? Don't even get me started." But for reasons that likely make sense only to God, these are the people God chose. And we are called to listen and follow, not because of their worthiness, but because God chose them.

I have a real world example in my own life. When I was 25 (yes, this was last century) I was looking for a job as a church youth minister, working with high school students. Frankly my job search was a disaster. I was living in Virginia and had dreams to moving to the San Jose area, but I interviewed in three parishes and none of them wanted me. I wasn't sure how I was going to support myself and I wondered if God had a place for me. Through a coincidence that defies logic I learned of a parish in Virginia that was looking for someone to run their CCD (Catholic for Sunday School) program. They had a high school youth group that had died a few years before. They were looking for someone to run the CCD program because their current person wasn't working out. His alcoholism had gotten so bad that he could no longer hide the fact that he was having an affair with a divorced woman in the parish. The teachers were frustrated over broken promises, the parents were angry that their children weren't being taught well, and the children weren't getting the religious education they deserved. When I was called for an interview I went along only because I had nothing better to do and wanted to say that I had at least tried.

They interviewed me and offered me the job. So here I am, 25 years old, wanting to be a youth minister, and they ask me to run a 1,000 student, 100 teacher CCD program. Oh, and I can start a youth group if I wanted to. You'd have to be an idiot to take that job, right?

I did. I thought they were off their rockers to offer me the job and I thought there was no way I could do it. I needed a job and I figured I'd take it (and take the paycheck) until they came to their senses and got rid of me. After three years I found that I was able to restore the trust that my predecessor damaged and I created a youth group that was averaging 40 to 50 high school students per week.

I say this not to blow my own horn but to say that I was blessed with something even I did not fully understand. I learned to trust my instincts, believe in myself, and do what I thought best. It wasn't an easy job by any measure and I'm certain I was not the only one who doubted my qualifications but it worked out in the end.

I would not have chosen me for this position, and in the same way the early apostles probably believed they shouldn't have been chosen. But they were. I admire the fact that they said yes to this calling, knowing that they took the chance of ridicule if this "new way" ended up going nowhere.

They accepted the torch that was passed to them having no idea why, or where they were going. Or where they would end up.

I think this situation is far from unique. Every new parent can talk about their bewilderment over the responsibility they've been given and how humble they feel over what is ahead of them. My prayer for them is to understand that they were chosen for this. I pray that they come to the understanding I did when I accepted a job I didn't think I was qualified for.

I also hope that we understand that these events happen to all of us in our lives. We are called to say yes sometimes to something that scares us. Not all of these offers work out well, and maybe that calls us to accept the gift of humility. But sometimes they call us to the better angels of our nature. They call us to courage we didn't know we had or faith that came to us at the last minute. They call us to accept the torch when passed to us, even if we don't think we're the best person to accept it.

You can find the readings at here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading is (again) from the Acts of the Apostles and continues to tell the story of the earliest days of the Christian church. Here we see Phillip travelling to Samaria and proclaiming Christ to the Jews there (the Samaritans were Jews but were often the enemies of the Jews of Jerusalem). While he was preaching many people were cured of their illnesses. Back in Jerusalem, the other apostles heard about this and dispatched Peter and John to Samaria. The Samaritans had been baptized and Peter and John travelled there to pray for them to receive the Holy Spirit. John's Gospel describes Jesus telling his disciples that he will ask the Father to send an Advocate, the Spirit of truth. This Advocate will allow Jesus to live in the hearts of all of them and the Father will love them.

It's been my custom to link the first reading and the Gospel to a common theme, and the lectionary is set up that way. Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes not. This is a different case altogether. On one hand it's easy: Peter and John go down to Samaria and lay hands on the new followers of Jesus. They receive the Holy Spirit and live happily ever after. This was foreshadowed in John's Gospel when Jesus tells his disciples he will do exactly that to them. This is how confirmation, one of the sacraments in many Christian churches, was imagined.

On the other hand this seems too simple to me. It has spawned a whole cottage industry of "born again" churches who teach that baptism is not enough: in order to be saved the believer needs to repent and receive the Holy Spirit. The phrase "born again" comes from a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus in the 3rd chapter of John's Gospel where Jesus speaks of the need to be born of water and the Spirit and only by being "born again" can one be saved. But to leap from these readings to a belief that discipleship and even salvation is a two step method is looking in the wrong direction. As with many beliefs I worry that the whole "born again" movement is a mishmash of several unrelated passages from Scripture. We take a little of John 3, a little of Acts 8, and mix in some John 14 and blend to uniform consistency.

On the other hand there is no ignoring the fact that we do find ourselves with a sacrmental system that sees baptism by water and confirmation by the Spirit as two separate sacraments. Baptism normally happens during infancy and confirmation during adolescence. For example I was baptized at 19 days and confirmed when I was nearly 13. But this raises the obvious question of what to think of honest and sincere believers who have not completed both steps. Are they lacking something they need? Are they incomlete?

Many years ago I was asked to be the Confirmation sponsor for a young man whose family I knew. In one of our meetings before his Confirmation I spoke with him about the Catholic teaching on this. I explained that there are three "sacraments of initiation" (and seven total). The sacraments of initiation correspond with the Trinity: Baptism is the sacrament of the Father (inclusion into the Church), Eucharist is the sacrament of the Son (the Body and Blood of Christ), and Confirmation is the sacrament of the Holy Spirit (full acceptance as a Catholic). To his credit he got angry to hear that at 15 years old he wasn't "fully a Catholic." Out of this experience I wrote a paper in seminary arguing that all three sacraments should be combined together and conferred during infancy. Like many of my ideas this absolutely did not catch fire and my work has had no effect on Catholic practice. As with many of my ideas I'm OK with being the only one on my side.

To be fair I understand this. The reading from Acts appears to show that becoming a follower of Jesus is a two step method. Phillip sets out for Samaria, a place most Jews saw with contempt, to preach Jesus to them; perhaps the rest of the apostles chuckled and sent him with wishes of good luck. But when he is wildly successful the rest realized that they needed to pay attention, and Peter and John were dispatched. I can well imagine that they recognized that they needed to finish, and finish quickly, what Phillip started. It's easy to read this through the lens of the Samaritans not being fully followers of Jesus until Peter and John laid hands on them.

Or maybe not. As I've spoken about in other homilies, these early days of the Church called the apostles to figure out things as they happened and (to use a football metaphor) call audibles at the line. If everyone was as successful as Phillip, they would need way more evangelists, and maybe the laying on of hands constituted the authority to not only follow Jesus, but bring nonbelievers to Jesus. Maybe Peter and John were commissioning new evangelists. There is reason to give this serious consideration. Our modern day Jewish brothers and sisters celebrate bar Mitzvahs (for boys) and bat Mitzvahs (for girls) at around age 13. This is clearly seen as admission into adulthood: after this celebration the young man or woman is expected to be able to lead worship in the absence of a rabbi. As a matter of fact the ceremony centers on the young man or woman leading worship. In a Christian context, is this a passage from someone who hears the Word into someone who can teach the Word?

And where do we find the Gospel? Here Jesus says nothing about the role or responsibility of the disciple, but instead clearly tells his followers that the reception of the Holy Spirit (or Advocate) is the result and reward of faith. If you love Jesus and follow the commandments you will be rewarded with the Spirit of truth that will give you the strength to recognize the Father.

But what if we're looking at this wrong? What if these events, these sacraments, are not signposts, but instead a recognition of a process? What if Peter and John rushed to Samaria not because they had something the Samaritans needed but because Peter and John wanted these new followers of Jesus to see that the rivalry between different Jews would no longer apply? What if Jesus spoke with his disciples not out of a reward for their faith but out of a recognition that in the course of their lives they would always and continually need the interventions of the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit?

Would that change our understanding? I think so. Because so many of us Christians think of sacraments (no matter how many of them we believe or how we believe in them) as signposts, we see them through the eyes of "now that I've achieved this, I've gone this far. My next achievement requires me to do something else. I have to prepare for the next sacrament." What if our journey isn't from rest stop to rest stop but from step to step? On any long journey (say, a lifetime) we need to stop from time to time to recognize how far we've come or how far we need to go, but what if we recognize the holiness in every step, not just the ones that end in a sacrament? What if we read the Gospel's words that our love for God will give us strength in small, daily doses instead of huge sacramental gifts?

I have many friends who find life saving wisdom in 12 step (Alcoholics Anonymous) spirituality. They tell me that their lives are about progress and not perfection. I like that. It tells me that while a belief in seven (or fewer) sacraments provides great wisdom and truth, the idea that "following the commandments of Jesus" and being a disciple is not about two or seven sacraments but about starting each day as a sacrament. It's about going to bed each night with the realization that the universe is just a little bit better for my actions. It's about being the Phillip or Peter or John for the Samaritans I've met.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: We continue the first reading in the Acts of the Apostles. The community of believers is getting more diverse and there is a dispute between the Hellenists and the Hebrews. The Hellenists are complaining that their widows were being overlooked in the distribution of food. The leadership determined that they cannot divert their work to give out food. Instead they ask the Hellenists to appoint seven men to ensure a fair distribution. These seven are appointed, and the entire community laid hands on them. In John's Gospel Jesus tells his disciples that they should not be troubled as there are many rooms in the Father's house and he (Jesus) will go ahead and prepare a place. Thomas asks how we can know the way to this place and Jesus assures him that he himself is the Way, the Truth, and the Life and only by knowing him can one find his way to the Father. Phillip then asks to see the Father. Jesus again assures them that "I am in the Father and the Father is in me."

Until a few years ago I read these passages from the Acts of the Apostles with more than a little weariness. As I looked around the church that I knew, I saw a great deal of controversy. Conservatives arguing with liberals, disagreements about birth control, ordained women, and the like. And I read about incidents like these where they all cooperated with each other and all the readings had happy endings. And I wanted to scream. I wanted to shout from the rooftops that they had it much easier: they were a small group, nearly all of them had known Jesus, and the lines were just clearer. I felt vaguely accused by these earliest followers.

And there were reasons for this. Countless times in our Christian history there have been self proclaimed prophets who have decided to take like minded people and recreate these scenes. They decided that all the Christian churches are wrong, or have strayed off the path, or lost the message, and God has chosen them to start anew and get it right this time.

Of course, they've all failed. I believe they failed because they never looked more critically at readings like this one from Acts. Perhaps they believed that all they needed was a fresh "do over" or they thought Jesus' return was at hand and Jesus would look favorably on their community. As I spoke about last week, most of the followers of Jesus expected his return very soon. Because of this they saw no need to make future plans. Even today we see people who expect Jesus' return to absolve us of the need to plan; I got a driver's license in 1994 that was set to expire in 2000. The woman at the DMV (who was wearing a large pin on her blouse that said "Jesus" in cubic zirconium) told me this would be the last time I'd have to come to DMV because Jesus was coming back in 2000. I wonder where she is now.

The early followers, however, did begin to see things that needed attention. This first reading shows one of those needs, but it also shows us that the community of followers was already becoming more complex. The reading begins with the Hellenists complaining to the Hebrews about the treatment of their widows; this takes some teasing out and explanation.

Both groups were Jews who were followers of Jesus. The Hebrews were the main group and they were the ones we read most about in the Gospels. They spoke Aramaic (as did Jesus); the Hellenists, though Jews, spoke Greek. Both groups had a wide range of rich and poor; among the poor were widows. A woman of that time was cared for by her father until she married and was then cared for by her husband. If her husband died, she could come under the care of another husband, or her father (if he were still alive), or another family member. Outside of that she really depended on the generosity of those around her. She had almost no opportunity to create wealth or make a living on her own. Jews of the time (not just the followers of Jesus) we told explicitly that they needed to care for those who could not care for themselves, but this help was spotty and unreliable. The Hellenists in this scene complained because they felt their widows were not being treated fairly.

Clearly the easiest thing they could do was to tell the Hellenists that it didn't matter: very soon they would be enjoying eternity and have all their needs fulfilled. They didn't. They also could have talked with them about "personal responsibility" and how it wasn't their job to take care of these widows, hinting darkly that if they worked harder and made better decisions they wouldn't be in need. They didn't.

Interestingly enough they did say they didn't want this to take them from their role in evangelists. And so as they looked over the community they realized that as they grew, so did their gifts. And they appointed seven members among the Hellenists (we know this because they all had Greek names) and laid hands on them. We see this in our own eyes as ordination, and some of us will see this as perhaps the first deacons. Throughout our history we've seen deacons being ordained primarily to take care of the poorest. There are hints that go both ways, but I think we can see this as an important step in the leadership of what we now recognize as the Christian church.

Important? I think so. The leaders recognized that if they appointed Hellenists they would choose those most able to recognize who was in need. The Hellenists would know better than the Hebrews how to provide their needs. But also by having the Apostles (those who had experienced the resurrected Jesus) lay hands on these seven, they would carry the authority of the entire community. It was, I suspect, the best way to ensure the Hellenist widows would be cared for in the way Jesus intended. It was the best way to make sure everyone was included in the fruits of the community.

It is this inclusion that I maintain frames the Gospel. The image Jesus gives of the house with many rooms continues to be an evocative image for many of us. Several years ago I heard a joke about a priest and a cab driver who both died the same day and were greeted by St. Peter at Heaven's Gate. Peter took the priest to a modest home while the cab driver was given a palace. When the priest questioned this, St. Peter told him that they were graded on results. "When you preached, people slept, but when he drove, people prayed."

We find this funny on a few levels, but at least on one level we find it funny because we think of everyone going to the same place, or at least that Heaven will be so good that it won't matter if we're in a modest home or a palace. Jesus talks not only about how he is the path to salvation, but that everyone is included. Everyone. No exceptions.

This Gospel makes me nervous at times because it is an easy, and perhaps seductive step to read this Gospel through the eyes of "only Christians will be saved." I have to say that I don't see this in this reading. When Jesus proclaims that he is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life" does this include all the people in human history who have sought "the Way, the Truth, and the Life" who never heard about Jesus? I hope so. Does this include those who have sought "the Way, the Truth, and the Life" but found themselves immersed in faith traditions that didn't name Jesus as the Son of God? I hope so. Does it include the Hellenist widows who could have been seen as inconvenient to the Apostles, but weren't? I hope so. Does it include the people we find inconvenient? I hope so.

I read today's readings with a fair amount of discomfort because I see such a disconnect with what I see around me. With income inequality reaching scary levels, with our great wealth concentrated in smaller and smaller groups, I can't help but think that the Hellenist widows who are now working in service industries. I think about the Hellenist widows who are dying on the front steps of our VA hospitals after serving our country so faithfully. I think about the Hellenist widows when I hear politicians who claim that we can't help them with even basic services out of misguided claims that this will "kill jobs."

Our earliest Christian ancestors recognized that no matter Jesus' timetable, hunger is unacceptable. Turning a deaf ear to need is unacceptable. We need to see these readings through the eyes of the Apostles and not through the eyes of those looking for a way out of inconvenient truths.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading continues the early days of the church as told in the Acts of the Apostles. Here Peter stood up and proclaimed that Jesus, who was crucified, has been made Lord and Christ. When the crowd asked Peter what they should do, Peter responded that they should all repent and be baptized. Then they will be forgiven of their sins and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. About 3,000 people were added that day. John's Gospel goes back to a conversation Jesus had before his crucifixion. He is using imagry of a shepherd and his sheep. He warns them that the shepherd is the one who comes through the gate; those who climb over the fence are theives and robbers. But the sheep will know these theives are not the shepherds and will run away. When the Pharisees don't understand what Jesus is saying, Jesus tells them that he is the gate. All those before were theives and robbers and that is why the sheep did not listen. They only wanted to steal the sheep while he (Jesus) has come to save the sheep. "I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantlly."

I have to make a confession here: I always groan a little when Jesus speaks of sheep and shepherds. I am a born and bred city boy and my only experience with sheep comes at the meat counter at the grocery store. They are delicious but I have no idea what they are like away from my plate. Clearly Jesus and the people around him had more familiarity. In Luke's Gospel he was an infant when local shepherds came to pay homage to him. Given that, when the Pharisees don't understand what Jesus is talking about, I doubt we have much of a chance.

And frankly I've often heard people read this with very different eyes from mine. And if I may be so bold, I think many of those interpretations are wrong. You see, from my perspective I don't believe the common interpretation that Jesus is speaking to us as sheep who must choose the correct shepherd. Countless times I've heard from preachers that we are sheep who must choose between several shepherds. We're told to choose Jesus because he is the "good shepherd" and the others, the pretenders, will only lead us to slaughter.

Understanding that I know little about sheep, don't all of them end up in the slaughterhouse? In my understanding the way the shepherds made their living was to feed and water the sheep, and them sell them for slaughter. From the sheep's perspective it really doesn't make a lot of difference if they go to the slaughterhouse with the shepherd or the thief.

Maybe we need to stop looking at the sheep, and start looking at the shepherds. The sheepfold (as I found in my research) is a walled enclosure that the shepherds used at night to protect their sheep from predators. Several shepherds used the same sheepfold; the sheep could mingle amongst themselves because the sheep really did recognize the voice of their shepherds, and in an odd sort of way, the sheep themselves kept to their proper groups. Even if the shepherds couldn't tell which sheep were theirs, the sheep did. They kept everything straight.

So what is the role of the shepherd? That's clear. They are the ones who keep the sheep safe. They protect against predators and herd them into safe places at night. They are the ones who commit their lives to keeping the sheep safe. The origin of the word "pastor," that we use for the leader of a church, is closely tied with the word "pasture" where the sheep feed. Perhaps this is where the role of pastor begins. Even if we don't know much about sheep, when we use the word pastor to describe a faith leader we are thinking of pastors as shepherds.

I see this clearly in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. I think I can say this here: the early followers of Jesus had no idea they were starting a new religion. They all thought that Jesus' return was going to be very, very soon and there was no point in making long range plans. There are passages in Paul's letters that seem to indicate that he didn't expect Jesus to be long in returning. This brings a great deal of controversy, but there are those who think that even Jesus expected his return to be quick.

We have the perspective of over 2,000 years to know that Jesus' return wasn't going to happen soon. We have no insight into Jesus' understanding of his return, but I think we can look at the reading from Acts from our perspective. Since we know that Jesus' return is at least 2,000 years off, we can look at the events of the earliest days of the Christian church and see the first halting steps of its formation. We look at Peter and the others as our "founding mothers and fathers" and the decisions they made as crucial to who we are now. And since we believe that the Bible is infallible in matters of faith and morals, the decisions they made were ones that God wanted them to make.

The core of the readings today tell me that we shouldn't look at the sheep to decide who we should choose because that's obvious. Our message today is that we should continue the role of Peter and the others in the first reading. They spoke about salvation that comes from choosing life. We ask for forgiveness from our sins because we know that we can. We wash ourselves in baptism because we believe that we are worthy of it, even if we don't remember our baptism.

And what of the thieves who jump over the walls? The first reading essentially makes us all pastors by our baptism and we are called to keep the thieves from the ones we love.

But who are today's thieves? Jesus told his disciples that the thieves of his time were those who claimed to be the messiah. They lied to make themselves look important, gain followers, and enrich their own purses. Do we have those people today?

Of course we do. I've often joked that the mistake of the early followers of Jesus was that they didn't copyright the word "Christian" and anyone can use it. Today's thieves are those who make scandalous wealth by convincing the poor that their donations will make them more favored in the eyes of God. Today's thieves are those who convince good people that God will punish them for voting their conscience. Today's thieves work hard to erect barriers between us that God ignores. Today's thieves baptize hate instead of those who seek God.

OK, maybe I know more about sheep and shepherds than I let on. I still don't know as much as Jesus but I do know something about shepherds. We are all, in sense, shepherds of those who love us. We are called to protect our loved ones and we hope they recognize our voice.

And we are all called to be Peter and the other disciples. We are called to live our lives in a way that attracts others. Because they were bold in living their lives, we have become followers of Jesus (no matter how many generations ago that happened).

Let us be Good Shepherds. Let our voice be recognizable.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: the first reading continues from the Acts of the Apostles. Peter addresses a group of Jews; he tells them that Jesus was killed and rose from the dead. He invokes King David (one of the most revered characters of Jewish history) and tells the audience that Jesus is not only descended from David, but is more important. David, for all that he did, died. Only Jesus has eternal life. The Gospel is from Luke and recounts events shortly after Jesus' resurrection. Two disciples were walking from Jerusalem to the town of Emmaus when Jesus (who they did not recognize) joined them. Jesus asked what they were talking about and they recounted how Jesus was crucified but that they heard that Jesus rose from the dead and they didn't know what to do with that news. Jesus then began to talk with them about Scripture and how this was exactly what Jesus had told them about. When they reached Emmaus the disciples invited Jesus to join them for dinner. At dinner, Jesus blessed and broke the bread, much like he did at the Last Supper. When he did this the disciples recognized that this was the resurrected Jesus, and then Jesus disappeared. It became clear to them that they had been speaking with Jesus all along ("Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?"). They returned to Jerusalem and proclaimed that they had seen Jesus in the flesh.

Like the reading a few weeks ago about Lazarus, today's Gospel is one of those iconic readings where there is material for several homilies. I've often thought that if I was asked to give a weekend retreat there would be enough material in this reading alone to cover the entire weekend. That said, I'll avoid the temptation to jumble all the scenes together, thereby providing several appetizers and no main meal.

We're continuing the juxtaposition of readings where the first reading both occurred and was written after the Gospel. I know it's not done, but I think there is a case to be made that we should read the Gospel first and then the reading from Acts.

And so let us begin with the Gospel. It begins with two disciples (only one is named, Cleopas, and we have no other mention of him in Scripture) walking from one village to another. We see that they've learned of the empty tomb earlier in that same day and they must have been frightened, bewildered, and astounded. Speaking for myself, I would still be thinking someone stole Jesus' body, not being willing to believe what really happened, or even what "resurrection" would mean.

And then Jesus appears to them. Really? Talk about having a hard time wrapping your mind around this. Now think about this: if someone you loved died and was buried, wouldn't you recognize that person? How many times have we gotten tragic news that a loved one has died, and we keep thinking that a door will open, they'll greet us, and we'll see that this was all just a bad dream. If it really happened, wouldn't we recognize our loved one? But here they don't. The passage from Scripture says "something prevented them from recognizing him." We don't know what this is, but I think we can assume this was part of the plan. This passage has caused many of us to think that Jesus simply didn't look like himself, and that when we are resurrected we'll look different (as for me, I don't care how I look as long as I have a full head of hair). But that's probably just a distraction.

For me the meat of this reading isn't really about the journey, but about the destination. Over the course of the seven mile walk Jesus spoke with them about many things, and to be honest, was a little harsh with them. But even after he rebuked them and called them "foolish men" they invited Jesus to join them for dinner. Was it out of a sense of practicality, that you just don't abandon someone at the end of the day? Was it that there was something compelling about this man that they wanted to hear more? Or was it that they were finally coming to the most basic of understandings that the their world was beginning to change in ways that they would only understand in hindsight? Perhaps it was a combination of all these things.

Whatever the reason, they did something that would resonate over the centuries and over the miles. Whatever the reason, they invited Jesus to join them, and nothing would ever be the same.

Because when he was at dinner with them he replayed a scene from the Last Supper. We have no way of knowing if either if these disciples were at the Last Supper (and if you believe the depiction in Leonardo DaVinci's painting they weren't) but it all came together when Jesus broke and blessed the bread. "And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; but he had vanished from their sight." On some level that strikes me as just a little cruel. The price for recognizing Jesus is that he disappears from their sight. Just when they had the opportunity to ask the thousand questions they must have had, they couldn't. All the time they spent with him on that journey, they didn't know it was him, and the moment they did he was gone.

Or was he? Maybe he didn't just disappear to transport to Heaven and leave them alone. Maybe, and maybe this is the point of the breaking of the bread, he became a part of all of them. I'm Catholic, and as most people know, we put great meaning in the phrase "blessing and breaking the bread." Catholics believe that this bread is transformed (or "transubstantiated" if you want to get technical) into the very Body of Christ. Catholics throughout the centuries have done amazing things to preserve what we call "Communion" or the "Eucharist" or the "Blessed Sacrament." In the 1989 movie Romero, a biopic about the Archbishop of San Salvadore, we see a scene where Archbishop Romero is picking up Communion wafers off the floor as terrorists are shooting automatic weapons over his head [full disclosure: this scene never happened in Archbishop Romero's life, but many still consider it the most riveting scene in the movie].

And while I revere the Eucharist as much as any Catholic, I wonder if sometimes we don't head in the wrong direction with it. We have a tendency to treat it like "magic food." Many of us have sat through endless masses where 7 years old children receive their First Communion and are told that this is "food for the soul."

It is food for the soul but I don't think it's magic. Let me suggest that this breaking of the bread, this Eucharist, is intended not only to give nourishment to our soul, but to bring us together and transform us. It certainly appeared to do that with the early disciples, as we see from the book of the Acts of the Apostles.

If you don't know the name Dr. Paul Farmer, you should. He is a medical doctor who has spent his brilliant career finding ways of accessing medical care to parts of the world devastated by poverty. There is a book about his work in Haiti called Mountains Upon Mountains. In 2005 he gave the graduation address at my alma mater, Boston College. He spoke of the process of epiphany/metanoia/praxis in the context of outreach to the poor, and I hear his voice when I read these readings. You can find his address in his newest book To Repair the World

Epiphany is what happens when our eyes are opened to a new reality. The reality doesn't change, but our eyes do. It may be when we recognize that the person in front of us is the one we want to spend our lives with. It may be when we see that something that has caused us great suffering is a great teacher. And it may be when we see the person who has broken the bread in front of us is Jesus. I think we see that clearly in today's Gospel.

Metanoia is what happens when our minds are opened to a new reality. Now that our eyes are open we can no longer pretend they aren't. This is when we act on our epiphany because we can do no other. We can't go back to not seeing, and even if our path takes great courage on our part, we know we have to do it. I think that is what is happening when these two disciples returned to Jerusalem and told everyone about what they had seen. They couldn't just "keep it in their hearts" or hold it as a good memory. Their hearts burned and they needed to burn the hearts of others.

Praxis, the final of these changes, comes in the first reading from Acts. If epiphany is the opening of our eyes, and metanoia is the opening of our minds, then praxis is the opening of our determination. It's what happens when we know we need to act. We need to become different, better people. We need to not only have, but summon the courage to act. For Peter and the other of the first followers of Jesus it meant that they needed to proclaim the resurrection to people who didn't want to hear it.

And we, 2000 years later, still need to muster that courage. For Paul Farmer it has meant challenging the world to see the poor and destitute as being every bit as deserving of clean water and anti retroviral medications. For me as a hospice chaplain it has meant treating the sick and dying as people who are still very much alive and advocating on behalf of people who often don't look or smell good.

I believe this is all very much tied up in the breaking of the bread. We certainly revere the bread itself, but can we also revere the people who are gathered to share it? When Jesus broke the bread and disappeared, I don't think it changed him, or perhaps whether it did doesn't matter. What mattered is that it changed those who shared the bread with him. However we feel about Communion, transubstantiation, or what happened in this scene, can we at least commit to letting it change who we are with each other?

I think we can. Blessed Easter Season to all.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading is from the Acts of the Apostles, near the beginning of the book. The followers of Jesus began forming into a community. They lived together and owned everything in common, having sold all they have and shared the proceeds. Because of this, and because of the miracles and signs they performed, their numbers began to grow. The Gospel from John takes place shortly after Jesus' resurrection. Jesus appeared in a locked room to the Twelve, breathed on them and told them that they had received the Holy Spirit. This allowed them the power to forgive sins. One of the Twelve (Thomas) was not present; when told of this he refused to believe until he felt the wounds from Jesus' cruxifixion. The next week the Twelve were again gathered, and Thomas was present. Again Jesus appeared and invited Thomas to inspect His wounds. Thomas then proclaimed that Jesus was indeed alive. Jesus then reminded them that because they saw they believed; happy are those who believe without seeing.

I think most of us look at these readings immediately after Easter with equal parts envy and amazement. Like the politician's first campaign supporters who go on to high positions in the administration, we revere these first followers of Jesus. It is in these first readings, from both Acts and John, that we learn of those first, amazing days after Jesus rose from the dead.

A note of explanation here: in my synopsis I spoke of the "Twelve." I'm indebted to Fr. Kenan Osborne OFM and his book Priesthood: A History of the Ordained Ministry in the Roman Catholic Church. Fr. Osborne describes three types of followers of Jesus: First is the "Twelve" and they were the men Jesus chose in the beginning of his public ministry. Next are the apostles, and they are all those men and women who saw the resurrected Jesus (this includes Paul who claims this title because Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus several years after today's events). Finally, the disciples consist of everyone who follows Jesus, and includes all of us. Unfortunately when we use the common phrase "the twelve apostles" we are mixing two overlapping groups.

The Gospel begins with Jesus' followers gathering; we don't know who was there as they were just called disciples. All we know is that the Twelve were down to ten, as Judas was dead and Thomas was missing. Mary Magdalene had seen the risen Jesus and told the rest of his followers, but that's all we really know; we don't even know if Mary was present. But imagine how the scene must have looked to them: days after their worst nightmare they are told what must have been too incredible to be true. Jesus, who suffered the humiliation and death of a traitor and usurper, is alive. And, in a way that has become all too familiar to the disciples, it doesn't happen in grand form. Jesus, who first came to us as a helpless baby, doesn't announce his resurrection in majesty, but in the emptiness of a grave.

Accounts differ but in John's account it is Mary Magdalene, not Peter or one of the other men, who first get the word. Did they believe her? Were they even able to articulate their emotions to understand what the word "believe" even meant? How did they wrap their heads around seeing Jesus in the flesh? Did they know that this meeting was the first halting step toward building a community that would become the Christian community we see today?

And I can't move on without saying something about my namesake, Thomas. Let's face it: he's gotten a bad wrap over the years, being known as "doubting Thomas." The other disciples had an advantage over him in that they had seen Jesus, and given the series of roller coaster emotions they all felt, can we feel for Thomas who was reluctant to allow himself to be devastated again? Finally, when Jesus says "blessed are those who have seen and not believed," he is talking about us and not the disciples. They all believed in Jesus' resurrection only after seeing Him.

The first reading from Acts gives us an interesting juxtaposition. Normally the first reading comes from the Old Testament and obviously takes place before the Gospel. But for Easter we will take much of our first readings from Acts and they take place after the Gospels. I don't want to get too caught up in dates, but if we date Jesus' death and resurrection to about the year 33, this scene from Acts was not long after that. It is important to note that the book of Acts was not itself written for another 30 years or so.

This reading from Acts, and other readings from this book, have always troubled me a little. If we read these passages apart from anything else we know, we can get the sense that what we now call the Christian community "lived happily ever after." Obviously we know we didn't, so where did we go wrong? Is it our fault?

No, it's not. There is virtual unanimity of belief that the disciples had no intention of starting a church. They erroneously believed that Jesus was coming right back, if not this month or this year, certainly in their lifetimes. They were able to sell everything they had and live in complete harmony because they didn't expect to have to make any long range plans. To tell the truth, when I was a child and heard this, it sounded like Communism to me. Fortunately I had enough brains to not tell anyone what I thought.

Because of the rise and fall of the Soviet Union last century I think we can all agree that the idea of a group of people sharing everything is unsustainable. We have found, time and again,that we humans tend to respond to incentives. If we all get the same thing no matter what we do, many will do nothing, or at least less than they could. Eventually the community turns to sloth and entropy, and eventually collapses. There have been countless attempts over the last 2000 years to replicate this scene in Acts and they have all failed.

And so what do we do with this reading? If we're not called to live in a community where everyone works, everyone shares, and everyone takes only what they need, what do we do? Perhaps what we do is….take only what we need. I've been moved by Pope Francis' words about not bowing down to the god of capitalism but I think sometimes we don't take it seriously enough. We have been told, from our earliest days, that the purpose of wealth is consumption. With great wealth comes great consumption; we're even told that increased consumer consumption is good for the economy, as if our latest purchase is somehow an act of patriotism.

I'm in the process of turning in my old cell phone; the contract is up and the phone isn't working well. But I'm happy with the phone and don't want to upgrade. You can imagine the reaction I'm getting. Salespersons are telling me that there is faster, sleeker, and sexier out there and they don't understand why I don't choose it. I think they are whispering about me in the back room.

We see that all the time: we lease a car because in 3 years we won't be able to stand having a 3 year old car. The computer we bought 4 years ago that was supposed to do everything from spreadsheets to a cure for bad breath is mocked as a museum piece. Your flat screen TV is only 48 inches? My God, how can you watch that? You need at least 60 inches, and even 72 if you can afford it.

It's not my desire to make us feel guilty about what we have, but instead suggest this season is a good time to "tread a little more lightly on the earth." It's a good time to be more deliberate about what we possess and to realize that not all wealth enriches us. I know several people who gave up shopping for lent, and I've thought that was a good idea. I hope it breaks us of the belief that "we have to have this" but I also think it puts us (just a little bit) in touch with those who don't have the luxury to give up shopping for extras. And it makes a little more room to invest in providing for those who struggle. I also hope that if enough of us embrace the "do I really need this," or even the "will I find a use for it" ethic it will change how stuff is made. I know I'm swimming against a large tide, but does everything need to be the best to be suitable?

I have great empathy for those who work in sales and I understand that they have to make a living like the rest of us. But how many times have we felt rushed into making purchase out of concern that if we had time to think, we wouldn't do it?

Ultimately Jesus' first disciples were able to live the way they wanted because they thought Jesus' return was in sight. We know now that it wasn't, and we still don't. But the messages are still the same. We don't have to own the best because we have been redeemed by the Best. Just like the computer we bought 10 years ago felt like the best thing ever and now feels like it needs a handcrank, nothing we own or purchase will mean anything to us in light of our salvation.

And so let us tread lightly.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading is from the Acts of the Apostles. It is generally believed that Acts was written by the author of the Gospel of Luke; Luke's Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles are sometimes referred to as two volumes of the same work. In this reading from Acts, Peter addressed a crowd and reminded them that God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and Jesus went about doing good. He was put to death but was raised from the dead and everyone who believes in Him will be forgiven of sins. John's Gospel speaks of Mary Magdalene, who finds that Jesus' tomb has had the stone removed and believes that someone has stolen Jesus' body. She finds Peter and another disciple and tells them this. Peter enters the tomb and finds the burial cloths but not the body.

So what happened here? It's not as easy a question as you might think. In one sense, the answer is simple: nothing. That's what they found when they went to pay homage to Jesus. We can sympathize with Mary Magdalene and the other apostles who wanted to do nothing more than visit Jesus' grave. They had listened to him, followed him, believed in him, and devoted their lives to him. When the Romans killed him we can well understand the depths of their feelings for him. In their grief they still loved him.

And so their first reaction to seeing this nothing must have been bewilderment, fear, and grief. It must have felt like this horrible emotional roller coaster would never end. It wasn't enough that that their dreams and hopes for their future were obliterated on the cross: now his body has been stolen. The fact that Jesus was even buried was probably their only consolation. Because crucifixion was intended by the Romans to be a humiliating form of execution it was the custom that the bodies be left on the cross to rot and be picked over by scavengers. We don't know why Pilate allowed Jesus' body to be removed (and there are some who don't believe it ever happened), but even this small act of mercy was denied Jesus' followers in the empty tomb.

That's really how this Gospel story ends. But that's not where our story ends. If you are about 50 or over you remember the phrase "and now you know the rest of the story" from famed radio broadcaster Paul Harvey. But what is the rest of this story?

We get a hint of the rest of the story in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles where Peter speaks of Jesus' rising from the dead. We will be reading this in great depth over this coming Easter season, but this we know: the empty tomb is far from empty in our lives. This empty tomb had the power to blow open the very Gates of Heaven, defeat death forever, and grant all of us everlasting, joyous, ebullient life.

This empty tomb is the cornerstone not only for our faith, but for how we are to live our lives. I've said this before and I'll say it now: the hardest thing about being Christian is that we can't dream big enough for what God wants for us.

Jesus' disciples, God bless them, were wonderful men and women, and they had good days and bad days. But reading through the Gospels I always get the sense that they never fully understood what Jesus was talking about or offering them. This is true with any leader: to some extent we project our needs onto them and expect them to be fulfilled. The new boss at work will finally understand my value to the agency. This new politician finally gets what needs to be done. The new pastor who will blow out the cobwebs of this place and get things moving.

In rare instances this new leader will articulate a vision that we hadn't thought of but creates a new reality for us. I think this is what President Lincoln was talking about in the Gettysburg Address when he spoke of "a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men [and women] are created equal.

And the disciples were no different. For all that Jesus proclaimed about His Kingdom they were simply looking for a new Messiah, a new anointed one. They looked back on their history to the time of King David and wanted those days back. They wanted Jesus to be David II.

But God was dreaming bigger. God didn't want just David II, He wanted a place of salvation for all people. And that salvation began as simply as an empty tomb. That new vision for God's Creation began with Mary Magdalene thinking some cruel person stole Jesus' body.

This Salvation, this new vision, this new Heaven: who is it for? If you were Jesus and had the power to save, who would you save? It's kind of an unfair question because it asks us to think as God thinks, but give it a try.

Certainly the people we love. I think most of us think of Heaven as being a place where we have all the good things of this life, and none of the bad. When we think of the good things in our life, the people who we love are central.

What about the good people we don't know? We all know of the famous one: St. Francis, Mother Theresa, Gandhi. Of course they get in too. And the good people who aren't famous: the brave men and women who defend our freedom, those who devote their lives to caring for the poor, the sick, the dying.

But do we draw the line somewhere? Do we tell people that we didn't have them in mind and they aren't included? The unjust, the cruel, the "axis of evil" people? Sadly, when I look around, I think we do draw up our list. Sometimes it's overt: tune into most "religious programming" and we see preacher after preacher claiming a message of self congratulations that we're in while others are out.

But what if nobody is out? One of my seminary professors had a strong belief in Heaven and Hell, but his vision of God's judgment was that He opens the door to both Heaven and Hell and asks us to choose for ourselves. God doesn't ask how many rosaries we recited in our life, or if we were born again. God doesn't demand to know if we've accepted Him because He has accepted us.

So what do we do if we know we're saved? While there may be some who will use this to live a life that takes advantage of others, I don't think that's a large number (and I'm fairly confident it's non existent among those who are reading this). I think it gives us the freedom to live our lives as our best selves and not worry about the details.

Is the world 10 billion years old, or 6,000? Who cares? We're going to live forever. Did Jesus have a girlfriend or get married? It doesn't matter; we can ask him in Heaven.

I think we get ourselves tangled up in these questions because we think of Salvation as more valuable if it's rare, if it's something we need to earn or get right on a test. For ourselves I think sometimes we put great stock in exclusivity. Whether it's a sixth grade lunch table that Mary can join but Sally can't, to the secret list of members of the Augusta National Golf Club, we love the idea of being in when others are out.

But in his public ministry, Jesus didn't. Time after time we see him reaching out to people on the fringes: lepers, the blind, Samaritans, even women (recall the story of the Woman at the Well we read a few weeks ago). If he welcomed everyone who would listen to him in his ministry, why would he exclude people in His Kingdom? What if the "list of those excluded" is only our list and not God's? This may be material for another day, but who do you not want to see in Heaven? I think that when we can honestly answer that question with "nobody," we're finally getting the message of Jesus.

And so what do we do with Easter? I'm heartened to see that this is one holiday that has not been coopted by toy stores or beer companies. For many of us Easter is a time to enjoy watching children hunt for Easter eggs. It's also a time to catch up on what we've given up for lent, and hopefully to gather together. If that is the case with you, take a moment during your gathering to look around and imagine that this is what Heaven is all about. This is what Jesus had in mind when He came back to life.

You can find the readings here

Please note: Although many people attend services on Holy Thursday and Good Friday, I'm not going to have time to write homilies for either of those. Maybe after I retire. In any case, the readings for today encompass the events of Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, and Good Friday. I'll have a homily next week for Easter

"Brief" synopsis of the readings: I have brief in quotation marks because Palm Sunday gives us the longest collection of readings (except Easter Vigil) of the year. We begin with Matthew's Gospel and its account of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem in the days before Passover. The Old Testament reading is from Isaiah where he speaks of being given a well trained tongue, even in the face of evil. Finally we read the entire passion account from Matthew. It begins with Judas making plans to betray Jesus. The scene then shifts to the preparations for the Last Supper. In Matthew's Gospel this is the Passover meal where all Jews commemorate their liberation from Egypt. During the meal Jesus raises a piece of unleavened bread, blesses it, and gives it to his disciples, proclaiming it His body. At the end of the meal he raises a glass of wine (four glasses of wine are proscribed for the Passover meal). He blesses that also, shares it with his disciples, and proclaims that his wine is his blood and will be shed to forgive sins. After completing the meal they went to the Mount of Olives where Jesus tells them that they will all lose faith in Him but he will gather them back together after His resurrection. Peter protests and tells Jesus he will never lose faith and Jesus tells Peter that before the next sunrise Peter will have disowned Jesus three times. By this time they are at an estate called Gethsemane. Jesus tells them to wait while he goes by himself to pray. While praying Jesus begs God that "if it is possible let this cup pass me by. Nevertheless let it be as You, not I, would have it." On returning he sees that his disciples have fallen asleep. He goes back to pray and again, and a third time asks that the cup pass him by. By this time Judas has arrived with an armed escort who arrest Jesus. Jesus is then taken to Caiaphas (who is the Jewish high priest). Caiaphas, in consult with the other Jewish leaders, discuss what is to be done with Jesus. One man proclaims that Jesus claimed to have the power to destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days. They proclaim that Jesus has committed the crime of blasphemy. During this time several people see Peter in the courtyard and ask if he is one of Jesus' disciples. Out of fear, he pledges three times, with increasing emotion, that he has never met Jesus. By this time it is dawn and the Jewish leaders have decided that Jesus deserves to die; they turn him over to the Roman governor, Pilate. Pilate has no interest in Jesus but becomes afraid when he is told that Jesus is planning a revolt to defeat the Romans. He orders Jesus' execution which takes place that day. After being beaten and crowned with thorns Jesus is taken to be crucified, and having been so badly beaten, dies within three hours. When Jesus dies, the veil of the Temple tears and they experienced an earthquake. After Jesus dies, a wealthy Jew named Joseph asks for Jesus' body and buries him in a tomb.

I have to confess I had a difficult time parsing down these events to write the "brief" synopsis of the readings. Not only are they long, but they are also rich in detail. Because these are the events that form the heart of our faith as Christians, they evoke strong emotions in us. They are also events that inform our imagination: we can picture in our mind what we read, in no small part due to the scores of movies made that recall the last few days of Jesus' earthly life.

As a matter of fact, the difficult role of the preacher is not to tell the entire story but to find a narrative within these events that speaks to us today. There are countless of these narratives, but I will narrow it down. I think too often mistakes made by preachers during Holy Week come when he (or she) tries to say too much.

A few weeks ago, the 2nd Sunday of Lent, I spoke about how sometimes its better that we don't know the road ahead of us, that if we knew what awaited us we wouldn't have the courage to continue the journey. But what happens when we do know, and still need to keep going? I think of this when I read the beginning of this when Jesus comes triumphantly into Jerusalem. In several places in the Gospels He tells his disciples what will happen, how he will go to Jerusalem and be put to death only to rise again. He had to know that this trip on the donkey would be the last good day he has with his disciples in this life.

What was he thinking? Was he able to live fully in the moment and enjoy the adulation? And frankly, how much adulation was there? As we read the Gospels, Jesus and his disciples spend much of their time in Nazareth, but they also journey to other areas. But virtually all Jews return to Jerusalem each year for Passover. In Luke's Gospel when Jesus was 12 we read that Jesus and his family went to Jerusalem every year for Passover. This was the famous story where Joseph and Mary left Jerusalem, thinking that Jesus was with them, only to find that Jesus stayed behind and was teaching in the Temple. It must have been a huge crowd because Joseph and Mary didn't know Jesus was missing until they were a full day's journey away.

I describe this because the crowds closing in on Jerusalem were immense and the idea of all of Jerusalem coming out to greet Jesus is more a matter of our imagination than a matter of fact. Nevertheless, at least for Jesus' followers it was a time of jubilation. Passover was the high point of the year and even though they were occupied by Rome they could recount the events that led them from slavery to freedom.

But what was Jesus thinking? Dread? Fear? Hope? Despair? Was he looking at his disciples, knowing that they would all abandon him (at least the men)? Did he look at Judas and think "betrayer"? Or at Peter and think "denier"? Given how they acted over the next few days we can only hope Jesus wasn't keeping score.

And so back to my question, what happens when you know the immediate path in front of you is horrible; what do you do? I didn't have to search long to imagine something similar. A few years ago I was talking with the husband of one of my patients; I'll call him George. He told me that he was one of the troops that landed at Normandy on D-Day in 1944. The amphibious invasion began at 6:30am and he was in hour 6, landing around 12:30pm. Everybody knew the stakes. The Germans knew the invasion was coming, but not where or when. Both sides knew that a successful invasion would almost certainly begin the defeat of Germany and an unsuccessful invasion would cripple the Allies. George told of loading onto the transport boats in the middle of the night; they were supposed to have gotten some sleep before that but nobody did. Aboard the ship he said some of the soldiers were talking, some were shooting dice, and many were praying. They all knew that their chances of being alive in 24 hours, or even 12 hours, were far from guaranteed.

Hearing this I asked George how he, or any of them, had the courage to do this. He said that part of it was that nobody asked him to do it, that they were doing what they were ordered to do. But he also said that they all recognized that they were fighting for something much larger than themselves. None of them wanted to die and they often thought about the family left behind. But they knew that they owed it to their families, and to their descendants not yet born. As George spoke to me about it, it almost felt as if they were destined to do this job.

This is not a perfect analogy. George and the other 160,000 men were fighting to end World War II, not redeeming the world. And also, while no death is a pretty sight, Jesus' was particularly horrible. There were several ways to execute someone back in Jesus' time, but crucifixion was hands down the worst. It was hellish. The Romans did not crucify someone unless they wanted to make his death especially painful and humiliating. It could sometimes take days and its purpose was to send a message: if you do what he did, this will happen to you also. The gruesomeness of this was front and center in Mel Gibson's 2004 movie The Passion of the Christ

But taking nothing away from this reality I want to talk about another aspect of this that I think would have also been hellish. I'm struck by the fact that not only does Judas betray Jesus and Peter deny Jesus, all of his followers left. There is little of this in Matthew's account, but in Luke it speaks of only two women present when Jesus was on the cross. I'm sure they did what they did out of a combination of fear and grief and I'm grateful Jesus did not hold it against them (or any of us when our fear crests or our faith wanes), but being alone on the cross must have made his death a relief.

The insight I have in this, and a passage I've come back to many times is when Jesus is in Gethsemane praying. There are many passages in the Gospels where we see Jesus praying but this one is different. As I read it, Jesus is pleading to not have to complete this journey, to be able to slip away and disappear. Go on and have a normal life. Forget what he is destined to do. And three times he comes to see that his friends have fallen asleep, and won't be with him even here. And even with that, Jesus finally says to God: "Your Will Be Done."

I think about this passage when I'm talking with one of my patients who is facing death and is afraid. They often worry that God will interpret their fear as a lack of faith and hold it against them. I remind them that Jesus had the same plea: don't let this happen to me. And then I tell them that Jesus didn't deny his fear or see it as a lack of faith, but was able to set aside his fear and save the world.

Next week we get to celebrate that because Jesus had the courage to die according to plan, He was able to resurrect and live in an eternity without death. And so do we.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading comes from the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel. Here God promises that He will raise the dead from their graves and bring them back to Israel. Additionally He will put His spirit in them and they will know it was God who did it. John's gospel tells the story of Jesus, Lazarus, Martha and Mary. Lazarus is gravely ill and they send for Jesus. But Lazarus dies before Jesus arrives. On finding this out Jesus is taken to Lazarus' grave where he commands Lazarus to come out of the grave. Lazarus comes back to life and walks out of the grave.

When is it appropriate to give up hope? This is a far more complicated question than it appears on face value. If we think of hope as wishing for a result we can't control, there are many things we hope for on a daily basis. We hope the light stays green, we hope the next round of layoffs passes over us, we hope the mass we see on the X ray will turn out to be nothing.

The complicated dance of hope is central to my work with hospice. Many people decline hospice on the inaccurate belief that hospice means giving up hope. Others come onto hospice and avoid spiritual care because they believe the only thing a chaplain can do is "last rites."

Most disturbing to me is the belief that God will decide against them because they "gave up hope" as if God's intent balances on their feelings of hope vs. despair. The reality is that, in the context of the readings, it's never time to give up hope. The Israelites in the first reading have reason to give up hope. As they saw the Babylonians, their neighbors to the East, grow stronger they had many hopes. First they hoped they wouldn't invade. Then they hoped they wouldn't win. Then they hoped the Babylonians wouldn't destroy their temple. Then they hoped they wouldn't be sent into exile. All those hopes were dashed. It would have been tempting, and even easy, to give up. To think that either God abandoned them or was defeated by the Babylonian god. To embrace the culture and religion of their conquerors. And yet they didn't; perhaps some did, but not the ones who returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt the temple when the Babylonians were themselves conquered by the Persians. Not the ones who we think of as our spiritual ancestors.

But this reading from Ezekiel goes even beyond what the Israelites hoped. All they hoped for was return to Israel. There was, at the time, no real concept of an afterlife. This is one of the first times in Scripture where we see God speaking of raising from the dead. I imagine the impact of this was lost on many listeners of the time, but it is earth shattering. Not only will God restore what you want (return to your home) but give you what is beyond your imagining. Death is no longer the end of the story. It is no longer the end of our story.

This is the setting we find in John's gospel with Lazarus. His name has become synonymous with the idea of returning from the dead. Many years ago I cared for a patient who would often appear to be on the verge of death; a few times I was called to his bedside because we didn't think he would live more than a few hours. But he always managed to get stronger and wonder what all the fuss was. We eventually nicknamed him "Lazarus" and when he finally did die we joked that we wouldn't believe it until we saw him.

Normally in biblical passages of Jesus' miraces (called "signs" in John's Gospel) I find a lack of detail. This story gives me just the opposite: there is so much here that all the details cannot be covered in one homily, or at least one homily of appropriate length. Suffice it to say that a lot happens here.

I'm normally loathe to set up a dichotomy between Martha and Mary where Mary gets it right and Martha gets it wrong. In the end we're all Martha and we're all Mary. But there is something to see in their reactions here. We're used to seeing signs or miracles of Jesus restoring people to health or removing imperfections like blindness. And at first this appeared to be what was going to happen here. Jesus' friend Lazarus is sick and his sisters Martha and Mary send for him to heal Lazarus. But here Jesus does something puzzling: he delays his trip to Lazarus for two days, and by the time Jesus does arrive, Lazarus has died.

Again, it would be easy to give up hope. Jesus could have healed him, but now it's too late. Neither Martha nor Mary give up hope, but they do it in different ways. Martha runs out to greet Jesus and nearly trips over herself to tell him that Lazarus is dead and would have been alive if Jesus had returned in time. When Jesus tells her that Lazarus will live, she admits she knows that Lazarus will rise when all are resurrected. But Jesus pronounces Himself the Resurrection. Mary's reaction is similar, but somehow calmer.

As I look at this, I see their reaction as the difference between "hope for" and "hope in." When we hope for, we hope for an event or an outcome. We hope for something. When we hope in, we place our trust in someone or The One.

Some of you know this, but 26 years ago I capsized a canoe in Lake Ontario at 1:30 on a Sunday afternoon and was not discovered/rescued until 9:30 the next morning. Suffice it to say that the canoe was too big (18 foot), the lake was too big (it is a Great Lake after all), and my common sense was too small. I was in upstate New York for a wedding and that meant there was a large group of people banded together, not knowing if I was dead or alive.

As they told me later the group split into a few groups. One group was optimistic, thinking I would be found alive. One group was pessimistic, thinking they would never find me. My friend Pete was hopeful. As he told me later, whatever happened they would deal with it. He was hoping in.

I've thought about this countless times in the last 26 years. The optimists turned out to be right but there was no guarantee of that (and yes, after 5 days in the hospital getting intravenous antibiotics, I was fine). But by focusing their hope in my recovery they ran the risk of seeing their hope dashed. It was God's will that two guys in a fishing boat would find me, but it also could well have been His will that I not survive.

I worry when I hear people tell me that an event "has" to be God's will. Throughout our history as God's people we've seen time and again how He will never abandon us but that has never meant that everything will go well. Pain and suffering are not the domain of the evil and good things do not happen only to the virtuous. When we decide to follow Jesus we (hopefully) don't do it out of a belief that bad things will stop happening. I pray we decide to follow Jesus so that when bad things happen, we have a context of understanding our suffering within the belief in eternal salvation.

And so it is also with the Israelites in Ezekiel and Lazarus' family. When these readings began things had already gone wrong. Hoping that they would not be exiled, or hoping that Jesus would arrive before Lazarus' death, did not work out. If their belief in God depended on these events going a different way, their faith just got much more difficult.

But we read about them now because their faith didn't depend on events. It depended on their understanding that they were created by a God who has promised us eternal life.

So must it be with us. It's easy to feel God's love when things are going well, but it doesn't mean we experience the lack of God's love when things go badly. No matter what happens, we know that our connection with God is eternal. We have hope in that.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading is from the 1st book of Samuel and records when God sent Samuel to find the next king of Israel. He goes to Jesse to choose one of his sons, but Jesse shows Samuel seven of his sons and God chooses none of them. Only when pressed does Jesse admit he has another son, David, who is herding the sheep. When Samuel meets David, God chooses him and Samuel anoints him with oil. In John's Gospel Jesus is shown a man who was born blind. Blindness was often thought of as a curse from God and his disciples ask whose sin caused his blindness. Jesus says that "he was born blind so that the works of God might be displayed in him." Jesus then gives him back his sight. When others recognized him as the blind man they ask him how he can see and he answers that Jesus healed him. They then take him to the pharisees who become angry when they find that Jesus healed him on the Sabbath which violates Jewish law. They then ask his parents who, out of fear, admit that this is their son, but don't try to explain how it happened. They then tell the man that Jesus couldn't be from God since he broke the Sabbath. When the man protests that only one whom God sent could have cured his blindness, they drive him away. On hearing this Jesus tells the pharisees: "It is for judgement that I have come into this world, so that those without sight may see and those with sight turn blind." When they ask Jesus if he is accusing them of being blind Jesus tells them that since they claim to see, they must be guilty.

While I was thinking about this Gospel I spoke with a friend of mine about it. She pleaded with me not to write about this in terms of the "spiritual blindness we all have." I laughed when I realized that both of us have listened to countless sermons where this is the theme, if only because the preacher heard only the last few lines of the Gospel and paid attention to nothing else.

These are difficult and complex readings because they challenge us to look not only on our view of God, but also our view of ourselves and those around us. Jesus is often asked difficult questions from the Pharisees as a way of tripping him up, but this time the question comes from his own disciples: "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, for him to have been born blind?"

Blindness, or any deformity, was considered punishment at the time. The question they ask, though, has always puzzled me. If he was born blind, when could he have committed any sin that would have caused this? We normally believe that while we will live forever, we did not have an existence before we were conceived. But the Greeks at the time believed that earthly life was itself a type of punishment. We existed as gods, but did something wrong and were punished by being enslaved in a body and in that sense perhaps blindness was just a continuation of this. On the other hand there are also passages in the Old Testament that seem to indicate that children are punished for their parents sins (see Exodus 20:5).

But I find neither of these satisfying. I don't believe we existed before this life (and the man had no opportunity to sin) and I don't think a fair God would punish someone for another's sin. The question of why this man is blind speaks to a larger question of why bad things happen to good people. This question has been a bonanza for the publishing world, but it never seems to resolve.

In 1981 Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a book called When Bad Things Happen to Good People after his 14 year old son died of a rare and horrible disease (progeria). His answer to his son's death, and to the man born blind was essentially this: God is not all powerful and bad things happen only because bad things happen. As a matter of fact, chapter 7 is titled: God can't do everything, but He can do some important things. This is an excellent book and I've recommended it many times to people who were struggling with bad events but I think most of us are uneasy with the idea of events beyond God's control.

A few years later one of my college professors, Dr. Peter Kreeft, wrote a book in response to this. He was horrified at this image of God and wrote his own book, Making Sense Out Of Suffering. While Rabbi Kushner wrote from a Jewish perspective, Dr. Kreeft wrote from his Christian background. He said that since Jesus offers us an eternal place of salvation, that will make the worst of our sufferings feel like nothing worse than "a sleepless night in a cheap hotel."

And as much respect as I have for both of them, I think most of us still find these answers unsatisfying. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of a God who created the universe but can't rule it, and I'm also uncomfortable being told that human suffering is only bad because we lack perspective. I don't think it helps to diminish suffering by claiming that we'll be embarrassed by our complaining when we get to Heaven.

So what does Jesus say? I think this is the part of the Gospel that most of us gloss over. Jesus states that "he was born blind so that the works of God might be displayed in him." Most of the times I've read this, I've thought of it in terms of Jesus saying this was a type of setup. This man is blind so that Jesus can heal him, give him back sight, and give another sign that he is the Messiah.

But that hardly seems fair either. We don't know how old this man is, but he is an adult, and he has spent his entire life blind so that one day Jesus could come into his life. A blind person back then had a fairly miserable life. They were thought to be cursed and were left to a life of begging. There was the idea that others should give him alms but it's a life that nobody would choose.

What if the point of this was different? What if the point of this Gospel is not looking at God or the blind man, but ourselves? How are we supposed to look at someone with a disability?

When we look at ourselves or others around us, our best hope is that we (or they) be perfect. When a child is born there is no sweeter words from the doctor than: "Your child is perfect." If we find there is "something wrong" with the child, it's a source of great tragedy. But even a child who is born "perfect" will not be perfect for long. We all live with something, be it a food allergy, a gene that raises our risk of cancer, or nearsightedness. I remember talking with a coworker several years ago who told me that when she was told her 3 year old daughter needed glasses she burst into tears because her child was no longer perfect.

And if our lack of perfection is obvious to others, how are we to deal with this? How do we deal with theirs? People of previous generations remember shying away from people with cancer, not because of a fear of contagion, but because they remind us that we are not safe from cancer ourselves. Did the people of the blind man's time throw a few coins at him and run off because they didn't like to think this could happen to one of them?

This could certainly explain the reaction of the Pharisees. They immediately latched onto the fact that this happened on the Sabbath to criticize Jesus and use this as proof that Jesus cannot be from God. They even drove him away when his answers became inconvenient.

So what should they have done? What should we do? I think the message Jesus tells us is that we are all vulnerable but we all have value. Perhaps the blind man couldn't work at a sheep herder but that doesn't mean he doesn't have value. In our own day we often treat the disabled like problems we have to deal with. If someone is not able to work because of blindness, or depression, or combat related amputation, do we see them as valuable? When Jesus says that the man is blind so that the works of God might be displayed in him, maybe we are the works of God. When faced with someone with a disability, can see look at them with love? Can we see someone not as an expense, but as someone who has just as much a claim of God's love as we do? Can we love them as much as Jesus does?

I can't help but think of this in terms of all the brave men and women who are returning from war with horrific injuries, some we can see and some we can't. While we all agree we have an obligation to care for and value them, we don't have a good track record with fulfilling our obligations. We need to commit ourselves not only to be grateful to them, but to also see them as valuable. We need to understand that value comes not from what we can provide, but from Who created us. Those around us do not take things away from us, but provide us with different facets of God's love.

And so this isn't about spiritual blindness. It's about spiritual healing. We can't heal the blind as Jesus did but we can prevent him from having to beg.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading is from Exodus. Here the Israelites have left Egypt and are in the desert. But there is no water and they complained to Moses: "Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? Was it just to have us die here of thirst?" Moses then appealed to the Lord who instructed Moses to strike the rock and water poured forth. In John's Gospel Jesus was travelling in Samaria when a Samaritan woman met him at a well. Jesus asked her to get him a drink of water. She expresses surprise because he, as a Jew, isn't even supposed to talk with her, a Samaritan. It would be even more forbidden for them to share a cup of water. Jesus then speaks to her about living water and she expressed an interest in this. When she tells Jesus that if he really knew her, he wouldn't be speaking with her. Jesus replied that he knows she has had 5 husbands and that she is not married to the man she is currently living with; she is surprised and suggests Jesus is a prophet. Jesus then reveals that he is indeed the Messiah they have all been waiting for. She returns to her village and encourages everyone to come see Jesus. Many did and became followers of Jesus.

As I read this readings I'm struck by two themes: water and welcome. In one reading it goes badly, and in one reading it goes well. I don't want to fall back on the tired theme of "they got it wrong in the Old Testament and right in the New Testament" because that oversimplification is normally wrong. It is true, however, that things worked much better for the people in John's Gospel.

The first reading has almost an element of comedy to it. The Israelites had no trouble believing Moses (and God) when they were being liberated from slavery in Egypt. They were more than happy to leave slavery and security behind on the promise that they will rule their own destiny. By the next chapter they were grumbling and implying that things were great for them until Moses ruined a good thing. First they had no food and God provided manna. In this chapter they are thirsty and again blame Moses. In fear for his life, Moses again appeals to God who sends them water from a rock (presumably a spring).

In fairness to our ancestors in the desert, water is no small issue. As humans we need a steady supply of water throughout our lives and we live on a planet where most of the water is found in oceans and is undrinkable. We depend on water being evaporated, gathered into clouds, travelling over land, and raining back to earth. In areas that get little or no rainfall, life is hard. This is the land they find themselves in, and frankly they won't survive unless they cooperate with each other.

But here they don't. They complain to the point where Moses is in fear for his life. You have to wonder if there wasn't a part of Moses who wanted to suggest to God that they leave the people here, go back to Egypt, and get a better class of slave to save. But he doesn't and they do get the water they need. There is reason to think that they learned their lesson because in the chapters after this, they are successful in battle against Amalek and came to Mt. Sinai where Moses received the ten commandments. Maybe, a little at a time, they are getting the message.

Fast forward to John's Gospel and it's at best a mixed bag. We know the Israelites eventually came to the promised land. Many things happened to them, but one difficult branch of their history drove a wedge against the Samaritans. The Samaritans were descended from part of the Exodus group, but settled in the north of present day Israel. They were more accommodating of marrying non-Israelites and they had different interpretations of some of the Jewish law. Because of this they were considered impure by mainstream Israelites and were despised. Travellers of the time would often go around Samaria rather than having to deal with them.

Jesus and his disciples, however, did not. Jesus finds himself resting at a well while his disciples went into town. This sets up the scene, which is often called "the woman at the well." It's no exaggeration to say that Jesus broke all sorts of rules and customs in even speaking with her. We don't know her reaction on first seeing Jesus, but we can assume that she wanted to hurry and get her water and leave as soon as she could. We find later that she has had five husbands and is now living with a man she is not married to.

Normally the women of a town would go in a group to get water, early in the day before it got too hot. But this woman is there at noon, the hottest part of the day. It makes sense to think that she is alone because she has been outcast by the other women. When we hear of a woman with that many husbands, we tend to think of her as someone who doesn't take marriage seriously and burns through husbands at a fast rate. But maybe not. Maybe she is someone who is easily abused and has been passed from husband to husband. Women of her time were not allowed to divorce their husbands, but husbands could divorce their wives. Further, they were dependent on their husbands or fathers for their livelihood. I find it plausible that she found herself dependent on a man who refused to marry her.

That certainly explains her surprise when Jesus asks for a cup of water. He does not have a bucket and no way to get the water: he is not making a demand on her but is asking for help. Incredibly, Jesus then promises her living water. In this context, living water is flowing water (like a stream at the bottom of a well) and was considered much more pure than water that was stagnant (like in a cistern). But Jesus goes even further by saying this living water is not just "better water" but "miraculous water." He tells her that anyone who drinks this water will never be thirsty again.

We can well imagine her excitement at hearing this. Not only will this water end all the fear of thirst that they all lived with, it would end her days of walking alone in the hottest part of the day. She must have been overjoyed at this point. But then Jesus does what she fears most.

He asks her to get her husband. Her joy turned to shame as she realized that this Jew, a Jew who will actually talk civilly with her, knows her shameful truth. To make things worse, Jesus then tells the whole story about all her husbands. I'm a little surprised that she didn't burst into tears and run away. Maybe there was a look of love and acceptance in Jesus' eyes. Maybe even a look of welcome.

I once lived with a priest who reminds me of this: he was a Paulist and his name was Fr. Johnny Carr. I lived with him when I was a deacon. He was in his 80s and had Parkinson's Disease; his hands trembled and he was too embarrassed to celebrate public mass because of this. But his hearing was sharp and he spent many hours hearing confessions. Even if you didn't go to him for confession, you knew one important thing about Johnny: you could tell him your worst secret, confess your gravest sin, or describe the most horrible thing you had ever done, and he would still love you. He wouldn't downplay your sin or excuse what you did, but he would make it clear that you are defined by your best moments, not your worst. It was a combination of kind eyes, a soothing voice, and a calm demeanor. It gave many of us the courage to talk about embarrassing things knowing that we would inevitably walk away feeling unburdened.

I think that's what happened with this woman. There was something in Jesus that told her she had value and worth. And face it, it was just like Jesus to do this. He didn't negotiate with the best Samaritan, he reached out to the one they all thought was the worst. Because what happens next is perhaps even more incredible.

Jesus reveals himself to her as the Messiah and she leaves her water jar to return to town to tell everyone about Jesus. Remember two things: a water jar is of great value because it was the only way to transport this valuable water, and she was returning to the people who treated her as an outcast.

And it worked. She goes back and tells everyone she has seen the Messiah, they come out to meet Jesus, and he spends two days teaching them. The final line in the Gospel is telling: "Now we no longer believe because of what you told us; we have heard him ourselves and we know that he really is the savior of the world."

Let us, in our own lives, embrace these encounters. The woman at the well had every reason to fear and avoid Jesus, but something about him made her rise above her fears. It also gave her the courage to speak to people who didn't speak to her.

But let us also be Jesus. Let us reach out to people who fear us, even if we have done nothing to cause that fear. I've always been surprised at how much people fear clergy. Maybe it's because they fear our status as "moral authority" or they've had bad experiences. I'll always be grateful to Johnny Carr for dispelling this fear, one person at a time. And I pray I carry on his tradition. But this isn't reserved for priests: we can carry authority by being wealthy, or white, or well educated. We have the power to make people feel judged just by a look or a word.

But we can also make people feel valued by a different look, or a different word. The next time we find out something bad about someone, let's all agree to say something comforting to them. Let us provide both water and welcome.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading is from Genesis and describes God's call to Abram to leave the country of his birth to a land God has chosen. God promises that Abram's name will be so famous it will be a blessing. Matthew's Gospel describes the Transfiguration where Peter, James, and John join Jesus on a high mountain. There Jesus' face shown like the sun and his garmets turned white as light. Jesus is joined by Moses and Elijah. Then they hear a voice that says: "This is my Son, the Beloved; he enjoys my favor. Listen to him." The apostles want to set up booths to commemorate Jesus but he tells them not to tell anyone about this "until the Son of Man has risen from the dead."

If last week's Gospel about Adam and Eve is the story we heard first as children, this reading from Genesis has to be in the top five. The story of Abram (later Abraham) begins here, but has several twists and turns. We meet Abram here in the 12th chapter of Genesis and his death is recorded in the 25th chapter.

I've often wondered how Abram reacted to God's call. It's pretty simple in this reading: God calls, and "Abram went as the Lord told him." It was a serpentine route and it began even earlier, in the 11th chapter. In the chapter before this reading Abram's father Terah took them from the land of Ur to Haran where Terah died. Answering God's call, Abram took his wife Sarai, nephew Lot, and "the persons they acquired" and travelled first to Shechem, then to Bethel, then to Egypt. After Egypt he returned to Bethel, then to Hebron.

Lot and his people then separate and Lot goes to the plains of the Jordan; Abram goes to Canaan. The journey keeps going and I won't bore you with the details (if you're interested, you can search for "Abraham's journey" and get hundreds of websites).

I'm struck by the fact that Abram never seems to stop journeying. Granted, he was a herdsman and your life is a constant one of leading your flocks to food and water, and maybe I'm laying on my 21st Century baggage, but I find answering this call to be exhausting. If I were Abram I would have liked to have know the entire itinerary in advance.

Then again, perhaps if Abram had known in advance all the stuff that was going to happen to him, he might have given serious thought to not answering God's call. We live in a world of full disclosure, advanced planning, and knowing our options. It's a much different world. I remember years ago hearing Baptist Pastor Tony Campolo imagining the dialogue between Abram and Sarai:

Abram: Pack your bags, we're moving.
Sarai: Where?
Abram: I don't know.
Sarai: How will we get there?
Abram: I don't know.
Sarai: What will we do when we get there?
Abram: I don't know
Sarai: Why are we doing this?
Abram: Because God has called us!

In reality, this happens to all of us who have decided to be followers of God. We live in the bewildering uncertainty of a step at a time, a day at a time, a decision at a time. We truly can't see all that far down the road, and even when our path appears certain, detours happen or are thrust upon us. And if we're honest as we look at our life so far, there are almost certainly times when it was a blessing that we didn't see far ahead. Many years ago I was coming to the end of my first attempt at seminary. I realized that I had made a poor choice in Catholic orders to belong to and while I was veering left in my views, they were staying far to the right (in other words, I was becoming more liberal and they were staying true to their conservative beliefs). I was also questioning whether or not I was suitable for a celibate life (yes, that would be the first of many times I would get hammered by that question). I left the seminary and began to search for a job as a youth minister because that appeared to be the role that best suited me. In the 6 months before I finally found a position I substitute taught at the local high schools and waited tables. The youth minister position I eventually found turned into a three year position that allowed me to grow in maturity and joy like none other. Many of the skills I carry with me today were first learned there.

But the road to get there was not easy, or clear, or pleasant. In between dodging spitballs in class and trying to remember the daily specials at the restaurant, I went to several parish interviews that became exercises in frustration. I never doubted that leaving the seminary was the right choice, but I often wondered in hindsight whether I would have had the courage to leave if I had known how hard the immediate road ahead was. Perhaps it was God's blessing that I didn't.

So, too, with Peter, James, and John in the Gospel. I think it's a tendency in these readings to draw the link between Abram and Jesus, but I don't think that's the point. Previous to this reading, Jesus foretells his own death and tells them that they can follow Jesus only by taking up their own cross.

Perhaps this frightened them; it would certainly frighten me. Peter, James, and John were perceived as the leaders of the group and showing Jesus in the company of Moses and Elijah must have seemed like a "lighthouse" to them. I see it as a reaffirmation that they are on the right path in following Jesus.

But remember, following Jesus still required them to take up their cross; as a matter of fact the legend is that Peter himself was crucified. As we see through the rest of the Gospels, the whole crew seems to stumble around, not really knowing what Jesus is talking about, but after Jesus' death and resurrection they really become the founding pillars of a new faith.

So where is our transfiguration? Where is our "lighthouse" to tell us that we are on the right path? Or, where is our "call of Abram"? Well, it's my experience that we don't get these dramatic signs, but maybe we need to look a little harder, or pay attention in different ways.

In the days I was balancing the classroom and restaurant I have to confess I didn't see much sign that I was on a path that was going anywhere. All I really had to go on was the encouragement of those who knew my skills and believed in me. There were times when that was all I had. And frankly, when I got to the parish, I had a large mess to clean up. But eventually I began to see the fruits of what I was doing and could begin to exhale. It's been nearly 30 years since those events and I'm still in touch with several of the people I worked with.

Then again, after three years there it was clear that it was time to move on, and so the discernment, the questioning, all that repeated itself. And so the road to discipleship is a constant one of looking anew, wondering anew, keeping the fear and uncertainty in check, and moving along.

Given all that, is complacency an option? Of course not. It is core to our belief that if we follow, God will lead. Had I stayed in that conservative seminary out fear I wouldn't be the person I am today. And we all that those experiences. We are all on our own journey to Easter, resurrection, and eternal life. Let us enjoy each other as we travel this road.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading is from Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament. God created the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, and placed them in the Garden of Eden. God instructed them that they had free reign over the entire garden but they must not eat of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden (often called the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil"). If they eat of that tree they will die. The serpent is speaking with Eve and convinces her that if she and Adam eat the forbidden fruit they will become like gods. The serpent convinces Eve, and Eve convinces Adam and they eat the fruit. They immediately recognize they are naked and sew loincloths our of fig leaves. In Matthew's Gospel the devil takes Jesus into the wilderness to tempt him. First the devil suggests that Jesus can end his fast by turning stones into food, and then shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world. The devil promises to give all of these to Jesus if Jesus bows down before him. Jesus dismisses the devil and is then joined by angels.

This passage from Genesis is perhaps the earliest Bible story we were ever told as children; I can think only of Noah's Ark being in competition. It is also the story that has hopefully changed in how we read it as we've grown from children to adults.

The old understanding of this reading is clear, unflinching, and harsh. God gave Adam and Eve each other and a paradise to live in. He gave them only one condition that they almost immediately violated; because of that they were banished from paradise and the rest of us, for all time, are born with original sin that can be removed only through baptism. From that point onward, life was going to be difficult, and anyone who dies with original sin would be denied salvation. Everything would have been just fine if that temptrest Eve hadn't tricked Adam into eating the forbidden fruit.

Before I say anything else I have to say this: I've never understood how Eve got the blame for this. If we look at the dialogue between Eve and the serpent, the serpent lied to Eve to trick her into eating the fruit. God never gave Adam and Eve a reason to avoid the fruit, and the only source of information she had was the serpent's lie. Adam, on the other hand, needed no encouragement at all. I think this is another example of the woman in the story gets blamed unfairly.

Back to the story, I'm left to wonder why God set up this system. Any parent will tell you that if you leave a cookie on the counter with instructions to your child not to eat it is asking for the child to do exactly that. Did God set them up for the failure that would seem almost inevitable? When the serpent is convincing Eve to eat the fruit he tells her that "your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil." If they didn't know good and evil before eating the fruit, how could they be responsible for disobeying God?

I'm also struck at the transformation Adam and Eve undergo after eating the fruit. They didn't die (as God threatened), but their eyes were opened. Interesting that the first thing that happens is that they recognized they were naked and clothed themselves.

This is conjecture on my part, but perhaps there is something to this that we often overlook. The animals that surrounded them (and surround us today) didn't wear clothing and didn't know the difference between good and evil. In that sense, the pre forbidden fruit Adam and Eve were much like the other animals in Eden. But they were more than that, as we know they were created in the image of God. Perhaps, just perhaps, God intended to give Adam and Eve the special status as humans but on a different timetable. The difficulty with the events of this story aren't that Adam and Eve became greater than the animals around them, but instead they did it on their own (or the serpent's) timetable. As I look over this story I find it at least possible that God was going to give them the gift of reason and morality (and clothing) but gradually over time, when they were ready for the responsibilities that go with these gifts.

If that's the case, then they were given this gift before they had the maturity and they weren't ready for it. That's how the human experience seemingly spun so out of control (remember that in a few more chapters, their son Cain murdered his brother Abel). The point of the story isn't that Adam and Eve got when they shouldn't have, but that they rushed things.

I don't normally include the second reading that is read at mass because the reading often has nothing to do with the first reading and the Gospel. But this second reading is from Paul's Letter to the Romans (Romans 5:12-19 if you're interested). Paul draws a bright line between Adam and Jesus, showing how Jesus "cleans up the mess" of Adam.

I don't want to ignore that, but I am struck by how Jesus reacts differently to a temptation that was not all that unlike the temptation of Adam and Eve. The path that Jesus takes, we believe, is one that needed to happen a certain way. He needed to be born just as all of us were, he had to grow up in a time and place. He had to be betrayed and crucified, and he had to resurrect into eternal life.

Given that Jesus came from the Father and returns to the Father (along with the rest of us), how does the devil tempt him? These had to be true temptations or the story would have no meaning. Trying to tempt me with free skydiving isn't much of a temptation because I have no desire to go skydiving. Tempting me with peanut butter and chocolate ice cream on the other hand…

So why does the devil tempt Jesus first with food and then with kingship? The food part appears easy enough. Jesus had been fasting and was hungry, and presumably weakened; the devil doesn't offer food so much as remind him that he could create the food himself. This didn't seem like much of a temptation and Jesus had no trouble fending this off. The same with the second: the devil tells Jesus that if he throws himself the high wall of the Temple he wouldn't die. Jesus isn't tempted because he knows this and doesn't have anything to prove.

But I am interested in the final temptation. The devil tells Jesus that if Jesus bows down to the devil, the devil will give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world. But wait, Jesus now has dominion over all the kingdoms of the world. What exactly is the devil tempting him with? With Easter comes all of this, so why bow down?

I think the devil is tempting Jesus into a shortcut, a way of getting what he wants without having to work or wait for it. The devil isn't promising Easter, but a way around Good Friday. If you bow down to me, you'll have dominion now, without having to go through arrest, flogging, and crucifixion. Imagine how tempting this must have been for Jesus. I can see Jesus really giving this some thought, but then recognizing that bypassing Good Friday gives us an Easter much different than the one we have. A shortcut to a good place often doesn't get us to that place.

Think about it today. What if the devil came to Pope Francis with an offer to end hunger and poverty. Wouldn't he be tempted? Or to the warring factions in the Middle East with enough land and resources to provide for everyone's need?

I believe that we are all good people, and we want the right things. But I think we need the season of Lent because we often need to be reminded that shortcuts to our goals are often the sins commit. What if you apply for a job that you need and know you can do, but aren't (on paper) qualified for. All we have to do is exaggerate just a little on the application for us to get the job we know we can do. Otherwise it will go to someone who won't do as well. Aren't we really doing the company a favor?

In our most important relationships, are we often less than honest because our loved one "will just blow it out of proportion"? Are we justified in cheating on an exam when the subject material will never matter to us, but the grade will? Can we take something from someone who "probably won't miss it anyway"?

If we look at the Genesis story through these eyes, we an see that what Adam and Eve wanted wasn't a bad thing to want but in cutting corners they ended up with something far different than they wanted. Had Jesus given into the temptation, we would today be worshipping the devil instead of God.

As we journey through Lent, let us pay attention to the journey. Let us recognize that the road to our desire is as important as the desire and we get what we need only when we work for them honestly.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading is from the prophet Joel. We don't know much about the author, but his meaning is clear. He is calling the people to repentence, to return to the Lord, and to listen to his comands. In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus pointedly tells his disciples not to do good things (e.g. fasting, giving to the poor) so that other people will think well of you. He suggest that if only God sees your piety or generosity, He will reward you. If you do it only for your glory, God will not be impressed.

I have to confess that Ash Wednesday has always amused me a little. When I was growing up there were feasts during the year, like the Feast of the Assumption that were holy days of obligation. Even though they were weekdays where we all went to school or work, we were expected to go to church. Attendance was always mixed at best, particularly if the holy day was Thursday and we needed to finish mass to make way for the weekly bingo. But Ash Wednesday, which has never been a holy day, was always packed. I used to work at a church that was near several office buildings; we had to have 2 midday masses: 11:15 and 1230 to accommodate all the people who wanted to go to mass for the lunch hour.

It was also the day we could find out who else was Catholic. The ashes that were placed in the sign of the cross on our foreheads were a giveaway, and I've always suspected that was one of the reasons for the large attendance. Once, in college, I went to mass on Ash Wednesday and then to dinner at McDonalds (did I mention I was in college and had no money?). There I ran into someone I knew well but didn't know was Catholic. We shared filet o fish sandwiches and laughed over the fact that McDonalds didn't understand why so many of us with smudges were ordering fish. It was kind of a fun bond. From that day we always knew that if we saw someone else with the "mark of a Catholic" we shared a common belief system.

That public display was nice, but does that negate the Gospel where Jesus says to do these things anonymously? If I'm doing this to show others what I believe in the hope that they will respect me, what does that do for my spiritual health? How does that draw me closer to God?

That, perhaps, is the hardest part of these two readings. Joel tells us to "proclaim a solemn assembly" while Matthew tells us to go quietly to our room and not make much noise. In an ironic twist, it is perhaps a mark of the success of Jesus' teachings that this is even an issue. Jesus' teachings that we should be humble and make sure that God alone knows of our piety is not a universal value. In the pagan world it was (and in some places still is) a value to draw attention to ourselves. They puff themselves up and exaggerate their importance because their reputation among their peers (or underlings) is of grave importance.

This isn't true just among ancient pagans: look at pop culture to see how many hopefuls crave the admiration of others and look to those groups for their own sense of worth. If we take this Gospel seriously we should hope for the respect of our peers over the adulation of strangers. And the fact that we can be concerned over how our humility and desire for repentance appears is a mark that we are on the right path.

Now I'd be remiss if I didn't also speak of Ash Wednesday as the beginning of the Season of Lent. Many of us remember being asked as children (and being evaluated on our answer) what we were "giving up for Lent." Invariably we were asked to give up something we liked and this lack would bring us closer to God. Over the years I've done by share of this; giving up everything from candy to soda to alcohol. But I also think we can look beyond giving up something we enjoy. If the purpose of Lent is to help us renew our relationship with God and not be distracted by worldly things, can we do something else? I've heard some suggestions that intrigue me. Years ago I read about someone who was committed to picking up a piece of trash every day. He reasoned that while it wouldn't make much difference in the gross tonnage of trash in the world, it would make him more aware of the world around him. I also spoke with someone who pledged not to look away when he saw people holding signs and asking for money on traffic islands. He told me he wasn't always able to help everyone but the least he could do is acknowledge the holiness of the other person.

But however we commemorate Ash Wednesday and Lent of 2014, let us remind ourselves that we are committed to a sense of constant renewal to ourselves, each other, and God. Hopefully when we celebrate Easter next month we can look back on this time with appropriate humility.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: In the first reading Zion (Israel) is complaining that God has abandoned them. God responds by saying that even if a mother forgets her child, God will never forget his people. In Matthew's Gospel Jesus assures his disciples that God will never forget them. He tells them not to worry about having what they need, and that paying too much attention on the things of this world takes our sight away from God. In stark terms he tells them that nobody can be the slave of both God and money.

Several years ago there was a sitcom called Cheers that took place in a bar in Boston. In one scene the characters were talking about the absolute worst way to die. Most of the bar regulars were imagining scenes of being boiled alive in oil or other, painful deaths. Frasier, the psychiatrist, offered that the worst way to die is to be alone, never having been loved. Of course the other characters (Cliff and Norm) say: "C'mon Frasier, if you're not going to be serious, don't play the game."

You know, I think Frasier was right. We are social beings and we need to be with each other. Children who spend their first few years being neglected (intentionally or not) often struggle with attachment disorders; solitary confinement as punishment in prisons is often looked at as torture. The fear of being abandoned never leaves us, from junior high school lunch tables to our deathbeds.

Worse than being abandoned by our peers, we particularly fear being abandoned by those who are supposed to be caring for us. Nearly every parent I know has a story of a child who has a melt down when being left with a babysitter or being dropped off at preschool. Some of us may even remember our own childhood experiences of feeling that fear that our parents won't come back. This didn't happen because we didn't trust our parents: it happened because we didn't have the capacity to understand that we would only be separated for a few hours. We simply had no way of understanding the long view.

That inability to understand is completely reasonable in small children, and also with the Israelites in the first reading. True, God did liberate them from slavery in Egypt and lead them to the promised land, but that was a long time ago. Isaiah wrote this hundreds of years after Exodus/Entry to Jerusalem, and it was easy to forget all that God had done for them. It was particularly easy as this was written during their exile. The kingdom of Israel had been invaded and defeated by the Babylonians. Their leaders were driven away from their home and worst of all, the temple, the center of worship, commerce, and socialization, had been destroyed.

Because the Temple was gone, they could no longer worship as they had. They were being ruled by pagans who had no interest in God. And worst of all, they had no prospects of ever being able to return (spoiler alert: not long after this, the Babylonians were themselves conquered by the Persians who allowed the Israelites to return home and rebuild their Temple).

How did this happen? What about God's promise to always be with them? Had God forgotten them? Had God been defeated by the Babylonian Gods? Or was God punishing them for their unfaithfulness?

It's interesting to me that the general consensus is option 3: God punished them because they had taken their eye off of God and were living just for their own benefit. The idea that it could be something else is too horrifying to think about. We can accept punishment from God because that's something we can control. If this happened because God took His eye off of us, or because the Babylonians' gods were more powerful, then what is the purpose of faith? In that case it would have made more sense for the Israelites to abandon God in favor of the Babylonians. Nobody wants to be under the protection of a God who can't protect them.

But in a perverse sense, maybe we choose option 3 because we need to be in control. If God is truly just then His punishments are truly fair and we can stop them by changing what we do. That's at the very heart of conversion and reconciliation.

I'm certainly not going to argue against conversion and reconciliation, but I'd like to take this in a different direction. Why did the Babylonian exile happen? Why do bad things happen to good people? What if there is no reason for this, and no way to change it? What if we simply lived as if God were in charge and we had a place in his Kingdom? What if we just stopped trying to control the events and results around us and put our faith in God, no matter what happens?

The main problem with control is that it simply doesn't work. Sometimes we do the right thing and get bad results, and (let's face it) sometimes we do the wrong thing and get away with it. If we look at results as a way of deciding if we're living a just life, we're going to spend the rest of our lives being whipsawed by events over which we have little control.

I think we spend way too much time deciding that the bad things that happen to us are our fault. If we were thin enough, pretty enough, strong enough, or (drumroll) faithful enough, bad things wouldn't happen. If that were not enough, this can also be used as a weapon in what is sometimes called "spiritual terrorism." Several years ago I was back in Virginia where I grew up and went to daily mass at the church where I grew up. My family wasn't terribly impressed with the pastor, and I soon understood why. I don't remember the readings, but the core of his homily was this statement: "If your prayers aren't being answered maybe you should look at your life." To be charitable, maybe he was thinking of this in terms of people who are promiscuous and can't figure out why they are lonely, or ruthlessly ambitious and don't understand why they aren't successful. But all I could imagine was someone in the congregation who was praying for health for their children or good news on a cancer test. The pastor was implicitly telling them it was their own fault if things went bad.

The heart of today's Gospel tells us to look in another direction. He tells us that birds don't worry about their next meal and yet they appear to be fine. To be fair, birds do fine until they either run out of food or are eaten themselves by another bird. Do they really do fine? Well, no matter what we do in our life, we too are going to come to the end of our days.

I know, I know, it's not easy to think about these things. But if we truly believe in God and His promises, even death doesn't matter. Because God is greater than death. He has promised us a place in His kingdom no matter what happens to us in this life, and we are invited to live our lives in the light of that truth.

There are two schools of thought that I think speak to this, one ancient and one modern. The ancient one is Stoicism. We think of stoics as people who have no emotion, but that's far from the truth. Stoics hold that we spend too much time worrying about things we can't control and that ultimately makes us unhappy. It is better to live with the understanding that things happen that are beyond our control, but we can control how we react. If we didn't get that promotion, it doesn't necessarily mean we aren't good enough. If we're interested in someone who isn't interested in us, it doesn't mean we aren't good enough. One of the ancient Stoics, Epietctus, said this: "Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope."

The modern school of thought is 12 Step. It was founded in Akron, Ohio in 1935 by two men who were looking for a way to stop drinking. They soon found that it was more complicated that simply not drinking; they needed to change the way they looked at life. Instead of resenting what happens to us, and using that to justify self destruction, they suggested we live our lives honestly and let the results take care of themselves. They plan, hope, and make preparations, but don't personalize bad events.

The two schools are not the same, but I think both dovetail well with these two readings. Our troubles don't mean that God has abandoned us, and good fortune doesn't always mean we deserve it. But at the end of the day we will do best by focusing on the fact that God has a place for us.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading is from the Old Testament book of Leviticus. Here God speaks to Moses about how we are to treat each other. If someone commits an offense we are neither to hate him nor exact vengance. Instead we are called to tell him of his offense and not bear a grudge. Matthew's Gospel continues directly after last week's gospel. Jesus tells his disciples that while they have been taught "an eye for an eye," they must now love their enemies. Give more than is asked of you, and if someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn and offer your left. If you only love those who love you, you are no better than the pagans. The reading ends with Jesus saying: "You must therefore be perfect just as your Heavenly Father is perfect.

Oh, no, not again. I'm going through these readings thinking I have a shot at doing OK with these things, then I come to the last line in the Gospel: "You must therefore be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect."

Really? What shot do I have? Most of my life I've been graded on a curve and have had trouble even with that. If God expect me to be perfect, I hope He's OK with disappointment.

And in reality, God really is OK with disappointment. We were created to be many things: curious, loving, sexual, mindful, needful, and we were created to play well with others. We were not created perfect. This is not a screed on original sin or how we have "fallen from grace." But it is a recognition that we are also called to grow into that same curiosity, love, etc.

And in the beginning we are called to do this by following directions. If we take the Exodus event (where Moses led his people out of slavery into the promised land where they could worship God) as the beginning of the community of faith, we can see the need for rules to get along. The life of a slave is a miserable life, but in many ways it's clear what is expected. Slaves have normally been thought of as unable to care for themselves and are in need of their master's leadership. It's led to unhealthy relationships on both sides, but they did generally know what to expect of each other.

Reading through the books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy can seem like a mind numbing exercise in minutiae, but this was a group in great need of rules and regulations. They were in a hostile environment, being chased by their captors (they had no way of knowing the Egyptians gave up), heading into a land they didn't know. Furthermore they had no experience in self government.

And so in long speeches to Moses, God begins to spell out what they are to do. They need to be told what they can and cannot eat, who they can and cannot marry, and how they may or may not worship. It's easy to forget what a radical transformation God intended from the familiar pagan worship to the worship of a jealous God. God is laying out a brand new blueprint of how to live almost every aspect of our lives.

As Christians there are many of these laws that we no longer follow. We no longer divide meat into clean and unclean, a young widow no longer need marry her late husband's brother and we no longer sacrifice animals to God. But there is a great deal that we do still follow. In another verse in that same 19th chapter of Leviticus, God states: "You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great; with justice you shall judge your neighbor." In other words, you can't give someone the benefit just because he is greater or richer. That sounds much like our equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

And perhaps that where we begin our reading of the passage from Leviticus. What should we do if someone does something wrong? What do we do if we've been hurt by another? Well, if we can believe much of daytime TV, we go on a show like Jerry Springer or Maury Povich. There we can call him out, shout him out, and perhaps even throw a chair. But what does that get us? It may feed the smug part of ourselves and give a temporary sedation to our pain, but it won't lead us to reconciliation. As a matter of fact it makes any reconciliation nearly impossible. It turns a friend into an ex friend or perhaps an enemy. It turns a family member into an estranged family member. And it turns anger to hate.

That's hard enough in the societies where we live. It was impossible back then. They didn't have the luxury of grudges and they lived much closer to the edge than we do. God clearly states that while you must tell your neighbor of his offense, you can't use this as a weapon. The prohibition on hate or holding grudges means that you take the power away from the offense and put it back into the relationship. It means that we can continue as a community and not be ruled by the stupidest thing either of us has done.

Obviously, it's not that simple. Sometimes when we've been hurt by another person and we speak up, the other does not respond as we like. I think this reading asks us not to give up when that happens. Most of the time when we hurt someone, we don't intend that pain. We may have acted blindly, or recklessly, or out of our own pain. And maybe our own road to seeing this is a longer one. But if we belong to a community that is meant to be permanent (and we do), we need to hang in there and continue to work for reconciliation. Nothing else will do.

That theme is carried well into Matthew. Remember last week when we were told that to look at another with lust is as bad as committing the act? I drew a distinction there between perfect obedience to the law (which we can do ourselves) and perfect faith (that relies on God). I think we need to look on the call to perfection the same way. In a perfect world we would not need to care about reconciliation because there would be no sin.

But since we're not there yet (either in Jesus' time or our own) we do need to think about this. Here I believe Jesus pays his disciples (and us) a great compliment. The phrase "an eye for an eye" shows up first in Exodus 21:24 and is meant to put limits on revenge. In other words, if you lose an eye to another, you can remove his eye but not kill him. Laws like this are to stem the escalation of violence and revenge, and for that time, it was appropriate. By the time of Jesus, however, he though his disciples had moved beyond that and so Jesus tells them that they are no longer lawfully able to inflict proportionate revenge. Proportionate revenge may make the situation no worse, but it will also make it no better. If we commit ourselves to living in a world that is getting better (and let's face it, this is the message at the heart of Christianity), we need to be willing to take that first step.

If someone injures us, we are called to forgive that injury, regardless of whether the other person recognizes the sin. The call to "turn the other cheek" is lousy advice if you want to win a fight, but it's great advice if you want to live in a world where fewer people strike you on your cheek. In the epic novel To Kill a Mockingbird, attorney Atticus Finch is spat upon by Bob Ewell. Saying nothing, Mr. Finch slowly, deliberately, turns his head so his other cheek is exposed. It's a powerful scene and Mr. Ewell sees at once that the power of love has overcome the desire for revenge. What does Mr. Finch get out of this? Well, he gets to live in a world that just a little better because he reacted as he did. Did this have the wanted effect on Mr. Ewell? Probably not, at least not right away. But I like to think it had a profound impact on those who witnessed the scene.

This is clearly our call, but it's not an easy one, and we won't get it right every time. If we did, we'd be perfect, and we're not. But I like to think that God, too, grades on a curve. I like to think that the pursuit of perfection is what we are called to. I also think that God recognizes that it is only with His grace that we can progress. When I was a priest and sat in the confessional, I was always a little troubled by people who were overly critical or judgmental of themselves because they felt they were having to confess the same sins over and over. They didn't feel like they were making enough progress and that at some point God was going to lose patience with them. I would remind them that God looks at our entire lives, not like a proctor of a test who announces that time is up. I'd speak with them about the gift of wisdom, to act in the moment in the same way we would act if we had time to think.

In the final word, I believe that the call to perfection shouldn't make us feel discouraged. God calls us to perfection knowing that with His grace and mercy, we can achieve it. Perhaps not soon, or even in this lifetime, but if the road to perfection is possible, let's start walking it now.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading is from the book of Sirach; it's one of the books that Catholics recognize but Jews and Protestants don't. It was written about 200 years before the birth of Jesus and is generally advice given from a mentor to a student. Here the author suggests that the student has the power to follow the commandments and warns that God is watching the choices he makes. God "never commanded anyone to be godless, he has given no one permission to sin." Matthew's Gospel follows last week's reading. Here Jesus states that he has come not to abolish the Law or Prophets but to fulfill them. Anyone who violates even the least of the commandments will be considered the least in the kingdom of heaven. Furthermore, your virtue must be deeper than the scribes and Pharisees or you won't get into the kingdom. Finally, Jesus states that it is not enough to do the right thing. Not only are you not to commit adultery, if you look at a woman lustfully, you have already committed adultery in your heart.

I've explained before that there are many reasons I'm not a fundamentalist Christian. Part of it has to do with errors of fact in the Bible, part of it has to do with conflicting demands. Today the Gospel shows how it is impossible to do what is expected of us.

If we read this as an absolute fundamentalist, it's pretty troubling. Jesus claims that he is not here to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. And he says: "I tell you solemnly, till heaven and earth disappear, not one dot, one little stroke, shall disappear from the Law until its purpose is achieved." There are a lot of laws in the Old Testament; just look at the books of Leviticus and Numbers. Are we to follow all of them? Numbers 15:37-41 demands that a man who gathered sticks and therefore violated the Sabbath be put to death. Think about that next time you volunteer to work on Sunday.

If that isn't enough, Jesus says we need to be more virtuous than the scribes or the Pharisees. We probably get some wiggle room here as there are no scribes or Pharisees around today. But at the time of Jesus they were everywhere; they were the authorities when it came to what it meant to be a good Jew. If we have to be more virtuous than them, how can we have a chance?

And finally I'm sure I'm not the only one who had a reaction to the part about lust: "Really? If looking at someone with lust is the same as committing adultery, what am I supposed to do? Is simply being attracted to someone now not allowed? And how did Jesus (let alone the rest of us) get through adolescence with this commandment?" In 1976 Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter said this in an interview for Playboy magazine: "I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times."

Not to pile on here, but the author of the first reading says pretty explicitly that we have the power to keep the commandments. He even says, pretty graphically, "He has set fire and water before you; put out your hand to whichever you prefer." If I don't think I the power to avoid sin, does that make me weak? Or condemned? Or hopeless?

I don't think so, or at least I hope not. I believe that the one thing Jesus doesn't explicitly speak of, but hopes we connect, is the role of grace and mercy. Jesus lived in a time that was resplendent with rules, regulations, commandments, and directives. It seemed that between the laws regulating Jewish life and the rules imposed by Rome, everything you did was someone under review of some law. And while this mountain of rules can be suffocating, it can also, oddly, tend toward complacency. If all we do is follow the rules and look nowhere else for how to live our lives, we run the risk of being blind to the world around us.

For many, the core of all these rules are the 10 commandments (if you need a refresher, they are located in the 20th chapter of the book of Exodus). I have to say, if that's the basis for how God looks at us, I'm doing OK these days. So far this week I haven't worshipped graven images, taken God's name in vain, or killed anyone. I spoke with my parents last week and intend to send them an anniversary card this week. I haven't coveted anything of my neighbors' or born false witness about anyone. This isn't bad.

And maybe that's the point. If that's all I've done, have I really done all that much? Is this truly a cause for smugness, or is there more out there for me to do? The law and the Prophets developed out of a new community of people who were devoted to God but still learning how to get along with each other. They wrote these rules to set minimum standards for each other because they depended on each other for their very survival. As they developed and grew they (hopefully) developed more and more into a covenant community, a place where they had expectations of themselves and others not just because they needed each other, but because they were devoted to each other.

It's impossible to know why Jesus chose the time he did to come to earth, but perhaps this was the point where the Israelites were finally making the transition from law to covenant, from obedience to faithfulness.

We do this as people. It's fascinating to watch children grow and develop, to see the world through new eyes, and we celebrate when they mature. We would never say to a 5 year old: "I expect you to do this without being asked," but we can say it to a 15 year old. The difference isn't just 10 years, but 10 years of understanding how he fits into the world and what is expected of him. Ten years of seeing that we can move beyond simple obedience to faithfulness, 10 years of understanding that he can figure out on his own what needs to be done.

The path from obedience to faithfulness is one we must all take. If you think about your relationship with your spouse (or whoever is the most important person in your life), would you say that you are obedient? I hope not. Would you say you are faithful? I hope so. Faithfulness is not simply not cheating on someone; it's knowing how best to be with that person and living that way. To be simply obedient is not something to be proud of; a 5 year old can be obedient.

And I think we are called to move beyond simple obedience with God to that same faithfulness. We live in harmony with God and each other not because we are told to or because something bad will happen to us if we don't. We live this way because we see faithfulness as a virtue and a way to be our best selves.

And here is where the need for grace and mercy come it. While we can be simply obedient, mostly by not doing things we shouldn't, on our own, we can't be faithful on our own. We stumble, we sin, we misjudge, and sometimes we make a mess of epic proportions. But we keep coming back. And we do this because God has told us we can. We do this because God has made clear that there are not limits on His mercy or an expiration date on His grace. God has promised us that as long as we have the desire to live in covenant with Him and with each other, He will provide the grace and mercy for us to do that.

And so next time someone tells you that he follows the 10 commandments, maybe you can challenge him to her to do better than that.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: Isaiah, in the first reading, commands that we share in our suplus with those who have need. If we do that, our integrity will go before us. God will hear us in our need and our light will rise in the darkness. Matthew, in a section often referred to as the Semon on the Mount, tells us that we are salt of the earth and light of the world. He instructs us to allow our light to shine so others may see and give glory to God.

The first reading is seemingly compelling and hard to argue with. If you have more than you need and someone else has less, share with him or her. That way both of you have enough. What could be simpler?

And yet, we've managed to make it difficult. Much like our world today, Isaiah prophesized in a world with great differences in income and wealth. Throughout history this has created a source of conflict: it's pitted the wealthy (who believe they are wealthy through a combination of hard work and good decisions) against the poor (who insist that they work just as hard for much less). While the wealthy insist that giving to the poor does nothing but encourage the same laziness and bad decision making that made them poor, the poor claim the wealthy often got that way through inheritance and good luck as much as hard work.

And in a faith context there has been a command to even out the wealth gap almost from the beginning. If we trace the birth of the Jewish nation to the Exodus (when they escaped slavery in Egypt) we see that their very survival as a people depended on them banding together. But once they settled in the Promised Land they set up a society where some of them were farmers, some merchants, some scholars, etc. Income inequalities sprang up immediately, and frankly this was not seen as wrong or sinful. The rich were not immediately seen as greedy, and the poor did not think it self inflicted.

But what happens when someone falls into poverty below which he cannot live? Do the rest of us help him out of our surplus, or do we explore why he fell down so far? And if we explore, do we explore to find out how to prevent this from happening again, or do we explore to find an excuse to not help him?

Sadly, I believe we often look for excuses not to help someone. We saw this in the last Presidential campaign when Governor Romney spoke of not needing to care about the 47% of Americans who don't pay taxes (presumably because they don't have a high enough taxable income). He stated pretty clearly that their lack of income is completely voluntary and we have no obligation toward them. Hard to imagine what he would say about this passage from Isaiah.

But I think I do know what Isaiah would say to him: if you're not willing to give to help the poor person, consider giving to help yourself. Because if you think we all do better through the pursuit of self interest and rugged individualism, you live in covenant with a God who doesn't. The Old Testament brims with encounters when God hears the cry of the poor. The good news is that God also hears the cry of the generous.

Let's face it: not all of our needs are financial and even the wealthiest among us have needs. When we pray, we pray for reconciliation in our families, wisdom in our decisions, and safety for those we love. Now being generous doesn't mean that reconciliation, wisdom, and safety will always be ours, but it does mean that God promises to remain with us when we remain with each other. God hears the cry of the poor in the hopes that we will too.

I think this dovetails well with what we read in Matthew's Gospel. This is part of what we call the "Sermon on the Mount" and it's the first real teaching we find in Matthew's Gospel. Because of that we sometimes refer to this as Jesus' first inaugural address and he uses dramatic imagery of salt and light.

A note of explanation is necessary here: salt, in and of itself, does not go bad. It does many things, and preserving other foods is one of them. Think of how long the salt has been there in your cupboard. Salt goes bad only when impurities are introduced and the salt has been contaminated. Perhaps the point Jesus is making here is that if we are salt, we should guard against the contaminations of greed and self interest.

But I have to confess that I'm more interested by the imagery of light. A dark room, no matter how large, notices the flicker of a single candle. At night we can see the light from stars millions of miles away. If we see generosity as light and greed as darkness, a single light of generosity will always shine through. Greed can darken, but not extinguish the light.

But how do we translate that onto ground level? We pay taxes that fund programs for our own people, from food stamps to Headstart to Medicare. Isn't that enough? Well….perhaps not. That type of giving isn't entirely voluntary in the sense that we don't decide where our tax money goes (even if it's decided by people we elect). But more to the point, I think most of us give voluntarily to places we support, and I think that's a good thing.

But I think we need to continually look at other places we can give. None of us, individually, can eliminate all the needs of the world, but we can do a part of that. And I react with the same anger as everyone when I find that I've given to a place that misled me and doesn't do with the money what I had been promised. But I hope that doesn't jade us to be overly careful with our generosity.

Several years ago I was having a discussion with a friend of mine about what to do about panhandlers. I've always felt uncomfortable in my encounters because they do appear down on their luck and I generally assume they are doing this out of desperation and not choice. Part of me recognizes that there have been times in my life where bad choices or bad luck could have put me there. On the other hand I don't want my hard earned money contributing to their addictions and poor choices. When I told him about these concerns, he said this: "All they are doing is asking for help. They make no promises about what they will do with what I give. Will they use it for food or shelter, or for booze or drugs? That's on them. By helping them, I've done my part. I hope they'll use it to get out of panhandling, but once I hand over a few bucks I've done my part. The rest is up to them."

In the years since that conversation I've often thought about the light he gives. I'm aware that there are other places in the Gospels where Jesus suggests we should give anonymously so as not to appear boastful, but I don't think that applies here. Even if we do something generous to make us look good, I think the good energy we get from our generosity eventually outweighs any selfish gain.

Jim is my oldest friend, and shortly after college he spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya in East Africa. One of the people he met there had an interesting story. As a college student whenever he would visit the student union building a cute girl would be in the same chair. He noticed a bulletin board in her sightline and one of the notices on the board was for the Peace Corps. Thinking he would impress her by tearing off one of the return postage cards, he would tear one off and take it (almost on a daily basis). He never got the courage to approach her and start a conversation, but he did have a pile of cards for the Peace Corps. The more he thought about it, the more interested he became. He eventually applied, and served with my friend Jim in Kenya. His generosity may have started selfishly, but it morphed into a generosity that greatly benefitted young Kenyans in a small village.

So it can be with all of us. We become salt and light when we reach out, when we see those around us not as the 47% we don't need to care about, but the 100% we do need to care about. I think God looks at us as a whole community, and we do well when all of us do well. I think we all do well when we don't ask "Why is he poor" but "What can I do?"

So let's continue to do that.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The Old Testament prophet Malachi writes in the first reading of a messenger from God entering the Temple. This messenger will purify the people just as gold and silver are purified. This will bring about the return of previous glory. In Luke's Gospel, Jesus is taken to Jerusalem and presented at the Temple. While there a man named Simeon was present. Simeon had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before meeting the savior of the world. On seeing Jesus, Simeon proclaimed that he can now die in peace. Also, an elderly widow named Anna, on seeing Jesus, proclaimed that this child would be the deliverance of Jerusalem. After the presentation, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus returned to Galilee in Nazareth.

I'm guessing that I'm not alone in this thought: there may have been a number of downsides to living during the time of Jesus, but there was at least one upside. To have been present during the events of Jesus' life sure would have made it easier to decide whether or not to become a disciple. Think of it: no filter on his words, no interpretations. We could have looked Jesus in the eye instead of just hearing stories about him.

I also have to confess at least a little envy of Simeon in the Gospel story. Promised he would not die before seeing the savoir (here called the "Christ," or anointed one), Simeon knew not only that the end of his life would be happy, he knew the purpose of his life. We don't know anything about him: was he a Pharisee? A Zealot? How old was he? Did he live long after these events? Why did God choose him? We don't know the answers to any of these questions.

The idea of having a purpose to our lives is central to who we are as people, let alone who we are as disciples of Jesus. My experience in hospice has shown me that the people who face their final illness with the least pain are those who have had a strong understanding of the meaning and purpose of their life. Many of them look forward to a better, eternal life, one promised to them because of their faithfulness. But some don't think much about what awaits them. They look back their lives with great joy and satisfaction. They see the children they have raised, the work they have done, the lives they have touched and say: "If this is it, it's enough. If my life leads me to a richer reward somewhere else, I'll take it. But if this is the final act of my life, I move offstage with grace and gratitude."

Part of that grace and gratitude comes from a recognition that what they started will continue to bear fruit after they are gone. They recognize not only that the world is a better place for them, but that the world deserves to be a better place. They see and understand that this world is not a place where we will be judged, or a place that we can use and dispose of on our way to something better. They see their own lives, and the lives of everyone else, as not only worthy, but holy. The Talmud is a collection of ancient Jewish wisdom literature, compiled in the 2 centuries after Jesus. It claims that everyone should have a child, write a book, and plant a tree, presumably because the fruits of all of these will survive our deaths.

It is for me no small irony that this feast of the Presentation of the Lord falls on Groundhog's Day. The 1993 Bill Murray movie of the same name tells the story of a man who lives the same day over and over. He goes to bed every night knowing that tomorrow morning he will wake up to the same events. The clock radio will wake him to "I Got You Babe" by Sonny and Cher. He will run into an old high school classmate "Ned the Head" who tries to sell him life insurance. The groundhog sees his shadow. I was struck when I saw the movie about how hellish his life must have been, and not only because he had to greet the day to "I Got You Babe." It meant that his life had no progress, and therefore no meaning. Nothing he did, no matter how wonderful, would carry over to the next day. Because of this, his life would soon become absurd and pointless. I don't think it's much of a stretch to compare this to a scene in Dante's Inferno where there is no growth, development, or purpose.

Fortunately for Simeon and us, our life is not like that. We can progress, see what we've done and been, and be pleased with what we see. Simeon's line that I find the most compelling is this: "Now, Master, you can let your servant go in peace, just as you promised." I see this as Simeon saying: "OK, I've lived for this day and my life is now fulfilled. I have seen my land and my people oppressed, but I have seen the One who will save us and bring us back to the people and the nation God intends for us.

But it is for that very reason I find myself envious of our friend Simeon. We don't have that clear sign that our life has been fulfilled. I am again informed by the patients I see in hospice: virtually all of them are limited by their disease. They are frustrated and often defined by what they can't do, by the control they must give to others, and by the fear that this means their life no longer has meaning. While many of them don't want to leave loved ones behind, they are impatient for "this to be over with." I had a colleague who once posed this question: "What do you think is the number one question I get from my patients?" I was not surprised by the answer. They ask how much longer they will have to live. They ask when they will die, not from a place of fear but from a place of weariness. I've had more than one patient ask why God has not come for them. "This is no life. There is no reason for me to still be here and I don't understand why I am. Has God forgotten about me?"

I don't have a good answer for this but this is what I tell them: "Don't limit God's plan for you to just those things you are aware of. There may well be an encounter, a conversation, a role that you are not aware of. Maybe you won't know why these days go on until you get to Heaven. "

That's the best answer I can give to these hard questions but in the end I find it a little unsatisfying. It relies on a Christian belief in Heaven but it also appears unsatisfying to my patients. In a sense it tells them to not think too much about finding meaning in their lives.

On the other hand, though, I think it does point to something larger than ourselves. While we see the need for meaning and purpose, and feel the responsibility to pursue those things that give meaning, we also do ourselves a great service when we don't saddle ourselves with the responsibility to be the final evaluator of that purpose.

My hope for my patients, and for all of us, is that we never get to the place where we feel our purpose is completed. I look for a time when we can all greet each new day with the understanding that no matter who we are or what we can (or can't) do, we may encounter someone who needs us to be who we are.

In a perverse sort of way, I pray we never say: "Now, Master, let your servant go in peace."

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading continues from the prophet Isaiah where God speaks of how places that had been covered in darkness (oppression) have seen great light (liberation). In Matthew's Gospel we find that John the Baptist has been arrested. Jesus then goes to some of the same cities that Isaiah speaks of being liberated. Jesus then begins to preach a message of repentance and begins to call for disciples. Peter and his brother Andrew, and then Zebedee's sons James and John, begin to follow Jesus.

The Gospel reading is one that, I think, evokes strong memories from childhood. I can remember several times in CCD (Catholic Sunday School) when this reading came up, and many of us wondered how we would have reacted had we been there. Would we have the courage to drop our fishing nets and follow Jesus? Of course this was against the backdrop of us being told never to disobey our parents; we have to wonder what Zebedee thought of seeing his sons leaving him with all the work.

I also remember one teacher telling us that there were probably plenty of people who looked at Jesus and said no. Perhaps they were in a position where they couldn't follow, or they just thought he was yet another crazy man who proclaimed he was the Messiah they had all been waiting for. So what happened to them? Did things go badly for them for missing the chance to follow Jesus? Was it like Noah's Ark, where once the door was closed they were doomed? I hope not. I hope these people were treated with compassion, because lets face it: compassion, mercy, and forgiveness were hallmarks of Jesus' ministry.

And what was it that made Jesus' call so compelling? What made Peter, Andrew, James, John, and the rest drop what they were doing and follow? Jesus was far from alone in his time; there were plenty of people claiming to be the One. How did they know that Jesus wasn't just another fraud?

That's something that we've been struggling with ever since. If Jesus was the first coming of the Messiah, we've been waiting ever since for the Second Coming. There is a Christian denomination called the Seventh Day Adventists. They were founded in the 1830s by a man named William Miller; in his reading of the Bible he and his followers proclaimed that Jesus would return on October 22, 1844. Over 100,000 people were convinced of this and stayed up all night in anticipation and nothing happened. Adventists to this day call it "The Great Disappointment."

You may remember a few years ago a man named Harold Camping who (with no formal religious training) claimed that he calculated the Second Coming would begin on May 21, 2011 at 6PM (he wasn't clear about which time zone). Most of us thought he was crazy but a number of people quit their jobs and spent the weeks before this spreading the message. When May 21st came and went, Mr. Camping went into hiding, and who can blame him? After a few days he came out of hiding to announce that a "spiritual rapture" did indeed happen, and the world would end on October 21st. That day came and went. Mr. Camping died recently.

OK, I am poking fun at these people, but it does still leave the question: why did the disciples follow Jesus? What was so compelling about this message? I believe that his message was fundamentally different. Most people who tried to lead appealed to peoples' desires and ambitions. "Follow me and you will end up in a greater place than anyone else." "Follow me and you will be given riches beyond compare." Jesus' message was starkly different. We read in other places in the Gospels that Jesus' message was much more "follow me and take up your cross," and "follow me and everyone will end up in a greater place."

In other words, Jesus' message appealed not to our base instincts of greed and exclusion, but to the "better angels of our nature" (to quote Abraham Lincoln). They followed Jesus, and we follow Jesus, not so much so that it will go well for us in the next world, but so that it will go well for everyone in this world. I'm not denying the reality of salvation, but I'm saying that the message of Jesus is radical in that it calls us to transform ourselves and our world right now.

This is not always a popular message and not everyone agrees with me. But that's OK, I'm fine with that. We follow Jesus not so that we can prepare ourselves for Heaven, but so that we can transform the here and now into a place where everyone has what he needs. Perhaps I'm showing my Catholic (universal) roots here, but I've never been comfortable with the idea of Jesus as a "personal Lord and Savior." I like to think more of Jesus as a "universal Lord and Savoir."

Let me explain: There are many Christians who look at this Gospel and think that this bodes well for the first four disciples. By being the first they will have an even greater place in Heaven. Two thousand years later I have decided to follow Jesus so that I will be saved. What matters above all is that I've said "yes" to Jesus, and everything else falls to second or third place. I am called to be a good person, to feed the poor and all that, but it does no good to feed someone and lose their soul. That hungry person must be led to Jesus and only then should I worry about filling his stomach.

I think the message that Jesus proclaims, and the reason it was so compelling to those four, is that we need to worry first about filling the stomachs of the poor and leaving salvation to God. The Jews in Jesus time were suffering under the crushing oppression of the Roman Empire and Jesus message of liberation was a welcome change to the idea that we should accept present suffering and hope for liberation beyond this life.

We are not living under foreign political occupation today, but there is still crushing oppression. We see all around us the idea that poverty is self inflicted and caring about the stomachs of the poor only encourages laziness on their parts. We see the message of Jesus being turned into a tool that divides instead of unites: "We Christians are under attack and we have to fight back."

The radical message of Jesus, and the reason he still resonates today, is clear and unbending. We are all in this together and how we treat each other matters. False messiahs existed then, and exist today. But the message of love, compassion, mercy, and forgiveness is what compelled Jesus' first disciples and needs to compel us now. We need to find anew the counter intuitive and counter cultural message that following Jesus isn't for wimps or part timers. It is, I pray, for all of us.

You can find the readings here.

Brief synopsis of the readings: We continue to read from the prophet Isaiah who speaks of a chosen servant who will be a light to the nations who will provide salvation to the earth. In the Gospel we find the baptism account in John. It is much different from Matthew's Gospel. Here John appears in charge and speaks of "one who sent me to baptize with water." This person will "baptize with the Holy Spirit."

What, are we doing the baptism again? Didn't Jesus get baptized last week? Do they think we didn't get it?

Perhaps this gospel is coming from a reverse angle; the events described are similar but not the same. John the Baptist is here seen in a much more powerful light. It is, I suspect, scenes like this that cause us to revere him so much. To use a modern term, John the Baptist is the perfect wingman for Jesus. He neither diminishes his role nor reaches for something greater. In introducing us to Jesus he gives us a strong taste of who this Fully Divine/Fully Human person really is and why we should follow him.

In this scene we see him taking charge of the situation, calling out to Jesus while Jesus is approaching. He even bestowed the titles "Lamb of God" the one "who takes away the sins of the world." The use of the title "Lamb of God" is noticed here because John does some foreshadowing: only in John's Gospel is Jesus crucified on Passover (the other Gospels show the Last Supper as the Passover meal) and John is playing on Jesus being the lamb that sacrificed for the Passover meal.

John's next line is more telling for me: the one "who takes away the sins of the world." Jesus' power to forgive sins, while a hallmark of our beliefs as Christians, must have been astounding to those nearby. The Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur is centered on the forgiveness of sins but an individual can only forgive a sin committed against himself. I can forgive you if you sin against me but I can't forgive any sin you committed against someone else. Only God can forgive all sins, and yet here John claims Jesus has the same power. So if only God can forgive sins, and Jesus can forgive sins, (at least according to my college logic professor Fr. Barrett), Jesus must be God, and therefore eternal.

John's gospel plays heavily on the themes of Jesus having existed before His earthly life (look at the opening of John's Gospel: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In the other Gospels it's easy to think that Jesus didn't exist before his conception, but that would make him not eternal and John wants to make the point that there was never a time that Jesus didn't exist.

In the early days of the church there were those who held that Jesus was not eternal, that He was an excellent teacher and prophet, but not divinely born (it's called the heresy of Adoptionism for anyone keeping score). John's Gospel stands directly opposed to that. But if that's true for Jesus, how does that affect us?

Perhaps this Gospel, along with the first reading from Isaiah, want us to look at ourselves in a deeper light. Nothing in the readings suggest that we have been around since the beginning of creation (then again, the readings don't negate it). But I think they call us to look at baptism in a different light.

In the first reading, God proclaims through Isaiah he (Isaiah) was formed in his mother's womb to be God's servant. But there is also a type of duality in that Isaiah begins asks God to choose him to be a prophet (Isaiah 6:8). Last week I suggested that we look at our own baptism as the beginning of our public ministry, or our discipleship. This week I suggest that in addition to that, we recognize that we have been chosen, not only before we knew who we were, but even before our parents laid eyes on us.

It can be a hard duality to hold, but think of it this way: to say that the road to discipleship is entirely our choice is to deny the role of grace. God puts us here and perhaps hopes that we will choose well, but does nothing to encourage it. On the other hand, to say that the road is chosen entirely by God is the worst type of predestination.

Perhaps we have these two baptism accounts on consecutive weekends to allow us to see the duality of God's call to us: he chooses us before we are aware, and we accept that call, and go and do likewise.

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: In the first reading the prophet Isaiah speaks of "my servant" as one who has been chosen to bring justice. This servant is not loud or strong, but meek and humble. This servant will also not be pushed aside but will achieve true justice. Isaiah then commands the readers to open the eyes of the blind and free those in prison. Matthew's Gospel shows Jesus approaching John the Baptist with the request to be baptized. John expresses surprise that Jesus is asking him for baptism when it should be the other way around but Jesus insists, and John baptizes him. When this happens the Spirit of God comes down and announces: "This is my Son, the Beloved; my favor rests on him."

The issue of Jesus' baptism has, I think, always puzzled many of us. Until just a few decades ago most of us thought of baptism as a way of removing the stain of original sin. We were taught that as a result of the sin of Adam and Eve, we were all born in sin and it took baptism to remove that sin. Without baptism we would not be able to enter Heaven, no matter what. Even innocent babies who died before they could be baptized were sent to "limbo," a place without pain but a place separate from God and salvation. It's no hyperbole to admit that generations of parents breathed a sigh of relief when their infants were baptized, knowing they would be OK "in case something happened." Did Jesus need this? Wasn't his mother, Mary, conceived without original sin? Shouldn't that have been enough? [note to non-Catholics reading this: we really were taught this]

Or do we look at baptism with post Vatican II eyes? These days we see it more as an entrance into the community of the church and the beginning of the sacramental life we are all called to. No other sacrament can be celebrated before baptism and it cannot be undone or repeated. But, let's face, it: when it comes to Christianity, Jesus is kind of the founder. Does he really need to join us?

If these readings cause us to scratch our head about baptism, it should also call us to wonder about the nature of Jesus. While we were all taught that Jesus was both fully divine and fully human, and that he was "like us in all things but sin," I don't think most of us ever really believed it. Speaking for myself, I looked at Jesus as God in human clothing. He may have looked like us, but let's face it: He's really God. He didn't stumble or lose his temper (except when necessary). He didn't trip over his tongue when talking with a pretty girl or lose sleep over an upcoming test. If you could transport a piano back in time, Jesus could play Mozart better than Mozart. If this were true, then it makes his baptism a bit of a show. It's almost as if he were saying to John the Baptist (and the rest of us): "Look, I don't really need this, but I want to look like just one of the guys. I want you to think of me as one of you, even though we know it's not true. I'm getting baptized, but not for the reason you are. I don't need it, but maybe you'll think I'm more like you if I go through the motions." I don't know about you, but this view of Jesus' baptism would greatly disturb me.

If these readings challenge us, and I hope they do, I think they challenge us not so much on how we see baptism, but how we see Jesus. I think, perhaps, that Jesus needed baptism just as much as we do. Today we're looking at Matthew's account of Jesus' baptism, but all four gospels have an accounting of it, and in all four Jesus begins his public ministry directly after his baptism. Matthew shows Jesus immediately going into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. We will see that reading on the first Sunday of Lent (March 9th this year); because the temptation in the wilderness is placed in the context of Jesus' passion, death, and resurrection we often think of it toward the end of Jesus' ministry, but here it's at the beginning. Perhaps it was the grace of baptism that allowed Jesus to withstand the temptation he faced.

For me, that's the crux of this reading. Most of us don't have any memory of our lives before we were baptized because we were baptized as infants. In the same way, since the Gospels were largely silent about Jesus' life before his public ministry, we don't know much about Jesus' life before his baptism.

But I do believe that he was baptized before his temptation because his entry to the sacramental life that we all share was necessary for him. The contraversial 1988 movie The Last Temptation of Christ showed a young, self loathing Jesus using his carpentry skills to fashion crosses for the Romans to use to crucify Jews. I don't know if I'd go that far, but it did show Jesus almost becoming a New Testament Jonah, running from God and God's plans for him. I do, however, like to think that Jesus came to understand himself with some of the same chaos and confusion we all experience in our own journies of self discovery.

Only in that way could Jesus become the servant described in Isaiah. That servant is hardly the take charge kind of person we would normally expect. This servant is "not crying out or shouting, not making his voice heard in the street." Instead this servant "establishes justice on the earth." This is a servant who must have a level of maturity and self awareness, a servant who is not serving himself or his own authority, but is truly serving justice for all people. This could only come to a post-baptism Jesus.

And so if baptism marked the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, so too does it with us.

Really? What was I supposed to start doing when I was 19 days old and newly baptized? There are Christians who purposely delay baptism until at least adolescence, believing that baptism cannot be fully appreciated until it is asked for. But we don't think that way. Why not? OK, maybe we need to rethink how we see our public ministry. If we think of public ministry as teaching, preaching, exhorting, correcting, etc., we think too narrowly. We also exercise public ministry when we share crayons in kindergarden or say a kind word to someone who is having a bad day.

It is telling to me that Jesus' active ministry begins with overcoming temptation, because so much of our early life is about that. From our earliest days we are forming our moral compass, choosing the things that give us life and passing on those things that don't.

I hope this reading calls all of us to rethink not only baptism, but also how we exercise our public ministry. I also hope that when parents bring their infants to be baptized they don't walk away relieved that they have saved their child from limbo but that they've started a new disciple on the road to "establishing justice on the earth."

You can find the readings here

Brief synopsis of the readings: In the first reading the prophet Isaiah uses powerful imagry of light coming out of dark as he speaks of the light of Jerusalem calling for all nations to worship. This clearly puts Jerusalem in the center and proclaims that other nations will come, attracted by the light. The last line states that "everyone in Sheba will come, bringing gold and incense and singing the praise of the Lord." In Matthew's Gospel we see "some wise men" who travel from the East to Jerusalem, following a star. They ask Herod about this. Herod, though a Jew, is disturbed and finds the prophecy that a leader will come from Bethlehem. He sends the wise men there and asks them to report back when they have found him. They find Jesus, pay him homage, and give him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Warned in a dream, they do not go back to Herod but leave by a different route.

Ok, let me say what we are all thinking: What on earth is Jesus going to do with gold, frankincense, and myrrh? Gold I understand, but the other two are reisns used for their smell. I mean, didn't Mary and Joseph think ahead and register at Babies R Us?

To be fair, the gifts given to Jesus were not ordinary gifts. Today we think of gifts either in terms of toys the baby will enjoy or things that will benefit the parents. But then, it would hardly have fit into the context to present the Holy Family with a changing table. These gifts were given as a way of proclaiming that his helpless infant is really our Savior. As I spoke about previously, we see Jesus as who he is only through the eyes of faith. Otherwise he looks like an ordinary baby.

Given this, it's not hard to understand why the arrival of these men was a problem for Herod. He is a Jew, but one who has thrown his lot in with the Romans and he lives well. And while he may claim to await the Messiah, he has to realize that Jesus' birth is nothing but bad news for him. He recognizes that he will now be pushed aside; it's hard to imagine this, but he is so determined to keep his position that his next move is to have all children under 2 years old who live in or near Bethlehem murdered. These children are often called the "Holy Innocents." Jesus escaped this murder only because Mary and Joseph were told of this and fled to Egypt.

But enough, frankly, about Herod. The gifts given to Jesus is the strongest image to come out of these stories: it's why we give gifts to each other, more than 2,000 years later. The wise men first see the star, and are attracted. Why this star? Well, it was different. These men are also sometimes called astrologers, and the people of that time knew a great deal about the look of the night sky, that they called "the heavens." This star was an anomoly, something that didn't fit. Something like this brings a hush to everyone. Is it good news? Does it portend bad omens? It certainly bears watching. Seeing this through the eyes of faith they saw this as pointing to something incredible. All they saw was the star, and yet when speaking with Herod they asked to see "the infant king of the Jews." When they finally saw Jesus, looking through the eyes of faith, they saw the Savior and paid homage.

I believe the reason we continue to give gifts because we, too, are called to see each other through the eyes of faith. Now, I recognize that many of us find the Christmas season to be one of untold stress. We have to find the best prices, the elusive parking space at the mall, and not miss anyone. But more than anything else, we put pressure on ourselves to find just the right gift.

Looking for the "just right gift" is (I believe) mostly self inflicted pressure, but at its heart is something holy. We want our loved one to open our gift and say: "It's just what I wanted. How did you know?" Well, we knew because we saw our loved ones through the eyes of faith. If you can't think about the best gift you ever received, think about a particularly blessed gift. Was it the gift itself, or the fact that the person who gave it to you knew you so well?

Seeing through the eyes of faith, especially when it comes to the people around us, isn't always easy. The fact that we're willing to put up with this much stress should indicate how important it is to us. We want to look at our loved ones in the same way the wise men looked at Jesus.

We also want to be looked at that way. If salvation through Jesus means anything, it means that we are looked at not by our worst moments, but our best. God's unconditional love allows us to live in the safe recognition that we can always strive to be our best and not be afraid to fail. It allows us to see that our worst sins will be forgiven and we will not spend the rest of our lives living down those moments. It means that the people who love us have committed to love us as best they can, and Christmas is a reminder of that.

When I was 10 my parents gave me a book called The First Fifty Years, a coffee table book on the National Football League. Forty three years later I still have it on the shelf. It's doesn't take much of an imagination to see what I was like as a 10 year old boy. But I was also a kid with asthma who could only watch football from the sidelines. This book gave me tremendous insight into the history of the NFL, merging my love of football with my love of history. The pages are worn and the spine is in tremendous need of chiropractic work but I can still recall all that I drank up leafing through the book. A few months ago I learned that one of my patients was married in Duluth, Minnesota. On my next visit I brought the book and showed him the uniform for the Duluth Eskimos, an NFL team in the 1920s. By the way, don't look for them on your fantasy football team: their last season was 1927.

The point I make by this is that I knew my parents not only loved me, but knew me well enough to know how much I would treasure this gift. Much like Citizen Kane and his sled Rosebud, this memory has stayed with me for many years.

Now please don't come away from this homily putting more pressure on yourself. The next gift you give doesn't need to be the one that will still be talking about 43 years later. But I do think it calls us to constantly look anew at the people around us, and to look with love. I think it calls us to perhaps spend less time looking up and down the aisles of the malls and spend more time looking at the people we love.