The Christmas Spirit

The Christmas Spirit

An atheist group called American Atheists is using a fake "Dear Santa" letter in a billboard campaign in several Southern states, urging people to skip church this Christmas and stop listening to "fairy tales." The billboard - which is positioned near several churches - features a little girl's letter to St. Nick that reads "Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas is to skip church! I'm too old for fairy tales."

The group claims the billboard targets closet atheists who are pressured to observe religious traditions.

I was struck by the irony that the group is using one obvious fairy tale, that of Santa Claus, to attack celebrating an actual event; the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. It seems they don’t want to jettison Christmas altogether, just the God part. Santa is ok because he’s a harmless old elf who gives us gifts but expects nothing from us in return. But Jesus is just too dangerous to include. He must be reduced to a fairy tale. It’s fine and good to enjoy Christmas and have the “Christmas Spirit”, just don’t go overboard with the God stuff. Christmas is real. God is not.

While this attitude is the extreme, every year we see the true meaning of Christmas pushed farther and farther into the background. But, while we mention Christ less and less, we still see Christmas as the time of year when we are kinder, more compassionate, more generous, more aware of those in need. We call that the “Christmas Spirit”, and we see the inherent good in it. The “Christmas Spirit” has become something we put on like a new sweater every year, and we all wistfully sigh and wish that every day could be like Christmas day.

Are you one of those people who have to work at getting the “Christmas Spirit”? I am. It just doesn’t feel like Christmas until the tree and decorations are all up, carols are sung and listened to incessantly, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, “White Christmas”, “A Christmas Carol”, and God forbid, “The Christmas Story”, have all been watched at least once, and of course, snow is on the ground. The busier life gets the more I use these signs of Christmas to get me in the mood. I seem to have to manufacture the “Christmas Spirit” with external signs.

Everyone, not just Christians, want the “Christmas Spirit”. Everyone wants a kinder, gentler, more compassionate world, and we want it more than once a year. We all know that things work better, relationships are closer, and life is more peaceful when we recognize and embrace the Spirit. We want the fruit of the Spirit but we won’t name the Spirit. We get almost there but can’t seem to make it all the way for fear of offending someone. It’s like we want to say it but can’t find the words. We acknowledge the gifts but not the giver.

The true “Christmas Spirit” is the Holy Spirit. The world will try to remove Christ from Christmas but it’s impossible to do so. All the wonderful fruit of the “Christmas Spirit” is actually the fruit of the Holy Spirit St. Paul talks about in his letter to the Galatians. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” The fruit of the Holy Spirit is the result of the Holy Spirit's presence in the life of a person.

Once we recognize the Holy Spirit’s presence in Christmas it will be easier to live the “Christmas Spirit” every day of the year. We must begin to see things differently, almost in reverse.

Do the gifts you receive give you the spirit or does the Spirit give you the gift?

Does the music you hear give you the spirit or does the Spirit cause a song of joy to well up within you?

Do the decorations give you the spirit or does the Spirit make you the sign of Christ’s presence to those around you?

Do the movies give you the spirit or does the Spirit inspire you to share the story of Jesus with the world?

The story of Christmas is not a fairy tale. It is the most powerful story in the history of the world. I can empathize with the atheists for not believing the story of Christmas, because it is almost too much to bear. How or why would God deem fit to become man, and such a lowly man at that? In order to believe in the story of Christmas you must hold a view of yourself that is often uncomfortable. You must believe that you are someone in need of redemption. You must be completely honest with yourself and humble yourself. But you also must see the extreme value in yourself, so much value that God himself chose to become man so that you could be redeemed.

Pastor Timothy Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City once said, “Every other religion has a founder that says: ‘I’ll show you the way to God.' Only Christianity of all the major world religions has a founder that says: ‘I am God, come to find you.’" What an awesome, humbling thought. God does not just sit up in heaven waiting for you to find him. He has not set creation up as some big test or board game, giving humanity a bunch of clues to follow in search of the true meaning in our lives. The God we believe in actually comes looking for us. He actually became one of us, entering history, living with us, rejoicing with us, suffering with us and dying for us. It is almost too much to comprehend. How could we be worthy of such a savior?

For a child is born to us, a son is given us;
upon his shoulder dominion rests.
They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero,
Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.
His dominion is vast
and forever peaceful,
from David’s throne, and over his kingdom,
which he confirms and sustains
by judgment and justice,
both now and forever.

Is Christmas about love? Absolutely. Is Christmas about peace? Definitely. Is Christmas about kindness to our fellow human beings? Of course. But Christmas is so much more than those things. Christmas is about the incarnation. Christmas is all about God becoming man. Christmas is about Jesus. Without Jesus there would be no love. Without Jesus there will be no peace. Without Jesus there is no kindness. Whether you acknowledge it or not makes no difference to the reality of the kind of God we have. Those things will exist whether or not you believe in them. God will exist whether you name him or not.

Don’t struggle with it so much. Acknowledge the truth, name it and embrace it. That is the Holy Spirit working in your soul. That is God tirelessly seeking you out, wanting so much for you to love him, wanting so much to work in you and through you to bring the fruit of his Spirit to the world.

We are not celebrating a religious tradition tonight. We are celebrating the truth. And that’s no fairy tale.

 

 

 

 

Comfort Food

You know, whenever I’ve had a bad day or a bad week or I’ve screwed something up big time, I like to sit down to some comfort food. Do you have comfort food? For most of us, I think, it is something that we really love to eat. Maybe it’s a meal from your childhood that makes you think of simpler times. Maybe it’s curling up on the sofa in your pajamas with a half-gallon of Hagen Daz, watching the Hallmark Channel. For me, it’s comfort chicken. Chicken breasts cooked in gravy with mashed potatoes and corn. Anything with gravy can be considered comfort food. There’s something about our favorite foods that brings us comfort when we feel down or depressed. It’s like wrapping yourself up in a warm, cozy blanket.

This time of year can require a lot of comfort food. The days are getting shorter, it’s getting dark earlier and earlier, and that can be depressing. For some, the stress of the shopping and planning and entertaining can bring sadness, not joy.  For others, the loss of someone close to them can make this season dark, not bright. Even the weather, the cold and snow, can drive us into the comforting arms of someone we love.

The prophet Isaiah is told in our first reading to bring comfort to the people. But he does not tell them to eat something yummy. Instead, he tells them that God is aware of their plight and will deliver them from captivity. You see, the Hebrews had been conquered by the Babylonians in 588 BC. Those who were not murdered were exiled to Babylon. 

They were literally marched over the desert bound together, some even with hooks through them to keep them from running away. In Babylon they had no army, no power, no ability to revolt, no hope for escape, at least no hope of their own. Their only hope was that God would see their plight and deliver them from their slavery just as he had delivered their ancestors from slavery in Egypt during the time of Moses. So, the people became far more fervent, far more committed to their faith. They took comfort in the stories of their past and heritage. They took comfort by keeping alive the traditions of their ancestors.

And God heard them and he promised them a Savior, a deliverer. They had to prepare for His coming, for He would come in a power and might the world had never experienced. Then Jerusalem, the city that had been destroyed, would not only be rebuilt but would be restored as the center of God's people.

"See, He comes,” the prophet says, "And like a shepherd he will feed his flock, gather his lambs in his arms, and lead the ewe lambs home with great care.” The Hebrews took comfort in that promise. Five to six hundred years after this prophecy, John the Baptist appeared with a mandate to give comfort to the people. As in the time of Babylon, a savior, a deliverer would come; only this deliverer would save the people from the power of sin. As in the time of Isaiah, the people had to prepare for the Savior. John the Baptist would preach a message of repentance. Sin had to be defeated within each person for evil to be defeated in the world. The people who heard John saw a man dressed like a prophet clothed in camel hair, eating insects and honey. They listened to his call for them to join him in preparing for the Kingdom of God. 

They listened to his telling them that the Savior was at hand. And so we return to those days before the public manifestation of Jesus, when the world was sitting on the edge of its chair, ready to leap with joy at the coming of the Lord. Comfort was coming then. Comfort is coming now. It is not found in ordinary food. Comfort is found in union with the Lord through the food of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the ultimate comfort food, isn’t it? Thirteen years ago on September 11^th and 12^th, people weren’t flocking to the malls or the car dealerships or restaurants for comfort. They weren’t looking for comfort in material things. They were flocking to the churches. They were hugging and consoling one another and gathering to eat the Bread of Life together.

People always seem to gather together at Mass whenever something bad happens in their lives. Illness or death or great loss requires comfort, and they find it here, in unity with us. It is the same hope and promise of Advent that draws us here together throughout the year. And it’s good that it does. This weekend we see an important aspect of turning to God, that is, recognizing not only that we need God, but that we need other people - and they need us. 

And as we prepare for Christmas, we do so not just to celebrate the birth of the Lord 2014 years ago but to celebrate his coming into each of our lives every day. And like the prophet Isaiah predicted, like the prophet John the Baptist demanded, we must fill in the valleys of our hearts, the gaps where we exclude the Lord, and level the mountains, the barriers of resistance we construct that block His Way. 

We must build a highway for Christ into our hearts. Jesus Christ is a reality, not an ideal. He is coming into our lives, if we let Him. We have to prepare for Him. Christmas is the celebration of love. It is a celebration of the Love that God the Father has for us to send us His Son. It is the celebration of the love we have for each other, manifested externally in gifts, but only as reflections of the love within each of us. For a gift given out of necessity is not a gift of love, it is just an obligation of a season. God the Father gave us a gift of love. We need to return this gift to Him by giving our deep love to each other. 

That means we need to fill in those holes where we allow ourselves to be empty, where we refuse love. For some of us, those holes are canyons. Our refusal to forgive those who have hurt us has created a hole in our hearts that has hampered the coming of the Lord into our lives. We have to level the mountains and hills we have constructed as barriers to love. Our selfishness, our using other people for our own happiness, our dependency on externals for happiness, our seeking happiness in hedonism and in materialism have all become mountains and hills, barriers to love. We cannot and must not allow this to continue. We can fill in the canyons. We can forgive. We can level the mountains. We can remove the barriers to the spiritual. We can be people ready to receive our King, our Savior, our Deliverer. 

C.S. Lewis observed, "every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before." It is up to us to decide whether that change is positive or negative. Lewis also said, “Though God made us without our consent, He will not save us without our permission.” It is us up to us individually and collectively to turn towards the light or stay in the darkness. Darkness brings fear and anxiety. Light brings us comfort.

The spiritual impact of this drama of light is brought into the Church during Advent. Our hymns turn to images of light. The darker it gets, the more candles we light on the Advent wreath. In the darkest days of December, our Advent wreath is at its brightest. As Scripture says, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it … The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world” An old prayer says, Within our darkest night you kindle a fire that never dies away.

And then, on December 24th, in the middle of one of the longest nights of the year, the liturgy of Christmas begins: Christ is born and on December 25th a new light shines. From then on, the days get longer. It is good and natural that we gather together with family and friends, and our faith community, during Advent and Christmastime to offer and receive comfort and joy. Life can seem overwhelmingly negative sometimes. Life can drain the hope from our hearts. But the message of Jesus has always been one of hope. Hope for me, hope for you, hope for all of humanity. And I find that comforting beyond measure.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go watch the Hallmark Channel.

 

Jesus Doesn't Want a Throne!

Feast of Christ the King

Cycle A

A couple of years ago, I was standing in my booth at the Religious Education Congress in Anaheim, watching the crowds walk by. Beside me was a beautiful presider’s chair I had made for a wonderful old church in San Diego. I was showing it as an example of my work, and I was very proud of it. It was solid mahogany with turned legs and carvings and emerald green marble inlays. A chair fit for a king.

Suddenly, a priest went by, practically running down the aisle, probably late for a seminar. As he passed my booth, he checked his stride, took a look at my chair, and began shouting, “Jesus doesn’t want a throne! Jesus doesn’t want a throne!” Then he hurried on his way.

Well, I was incensed. I didn’t know this guy and he didn’t know me. He had no idea why I had designed the chair the way I did nor which church it was designed for. Who was he to just shout out judgment on my work? It was embarrassing. He was saying that my understanding of Jesus was all wrong and his was right. He was denigrating my work to all around. I think he was a Jesuit.

His image of Jesus was different from mine. He saw that chair as a seat of judgment and control, and he preferred an image of Jesus as someone kinder and gentler. After I got control of my emotions, I thought, “Why wouldn’t Jesus like a chair like this? He’s my king, after all.” Jesus has been glorified and sits at the right hand of the Father. Why wouldn’t he sit on a throne?

We see both of those images of Jesus in today’s readings. We begin with the image of the good shepherd, kind and forgiving. We end with image of the King judging between the sheep and the goats. And you know, both are right. We do have a king that is kind and compassionate and forgiving. But we also have the Lord of justice who judges us according to our actions.

This is the Feast of Christ the King. Yet, what a strange king we have. Kings have thrones. Jesus had a cross. Kings have crowns of gold. Jesus had a crown of thorns. Kings have a court of attendants to wait upon them. Jesus’ friends all ran away. Kings have rings of gold on their fingers. Jesus had nails driven into his hands. Kings receive accolades. Jesus was mocked by everyone, even by the guy hanging on the cross next to him.

We don’t do kings well in America. In fact, we fought a long war of independence to get rid of the yoke of kings. We chafe against anyone and anything that curtails our freedoms. Maybe that’s the type of king that priest was thinking about.

Jesus is a different kind of king. He doesn’t take away our freedom, he gives it back to us. By humbling himself on that cross, Jesus showed us what real freedom is. Freedom in the kingdom of God is freedom from sin, freedom from the shackles of our own selfish humanity, freedom from death.

People in Jesus’ day understood what it meant to have a king. Everything they owned could be forfeit at his command. Their very lives were in his hands. At his whim they could be put to death. Signs of the emperor’s influence were everywhere, from the heavy taxes he levied against them to his ever-present legions of troops. To them, the emperor was the center of their lives, whether they liked it or not.

The disciples were confused when Jesus told them this parable, because that was the image of the king they held. Plus, they had the Jewish law, and they thought they would be judged according to it. Over 600 rules and regulations that covered all aspects of their lives, from who they associated with to what they ate and how they cleansed themselves. Now, here was Jesus telling them that it’s more basic than that. We will be judged not on how closely we follow the law, but on how well we treat one another.

There’s the famous story told of St. Martin of Tours, who lived in the 4th century. When Martin, a young Roman soldier and seeker of the Christian faith, met an unclothed man begging for alms in the freezing cold, he stopped and cut his coat in two and gave half to the stranger. That night he dreamt he saw the heavenly court with Jesus robed in a torn cloak. One of the angels present asked, "Master, why do you wear that battered cloak?" Jesus replied, "My servant Martin gave it to me." Martin had a wake-up call. Half measures won’t cut it.

All our king asks of us is what he asked of himself. The king of judgment judges us on how selfless we are. The scary part of this final exam is that not only will we be judged by what we do, we will also be judged on what we fail to do. Whether we know it’s wrong or not. The evildoers in today’s parable are judged on what they didn’t do, even though they had no idea they were supposed to do it. The real sin of the condemned was not that they failed to do anything for those in need, but they didn’t even notice them at all.

Lack of knowledge of the law is no excuse. It doesn’t even matter if you’re a Christian or not. God seems to think that we all know what we’re supposed to do, deep down, even if no one spells it out for us. There’s something deep inside us that tells us how we should act.

Maybe it’s because we have all been on the receiving end of compassion or the lack of it. We always look at this parable from the point of view of the person who is called to be compassionate. What about those who receive compassion? How have you been shown compassion this past year?

When have you been naked? Nakedness is not just a lack of clothing. When have you felt exposed to the world, when you had nowhere to hide, nowhere to run to? Was it a divorce, when you felt that all your family’s trials and faults were on display to all your friends? Was it the death of someone close to you, when you felt you couldn’t turn to anyone for solace, because no one could really understand what you were going through?

When were you hungry? We are surrounded by great plenty here, but hunger is not just for food. In our wedding rite we have a special prayer of the faithful. In it we pray for the hungry poor and the hungry rich. When have you hungered for spiritual sustenance and found none? When have you hungered for a loving touch, or a kind word, or anything that would help you get through the day, and found none?

Are you suffering? Many of you have suffered greatly this past year from serious diseases. The prayer list for the sick in the bulletin grows longer every week. Do you feel there’s no hope, no end in sight to your suffering? Are you frustrated by the doctors’ inability to find a cure? Do you feel abandoned by your friends, damaged goods, because they no longer come to see you?

What is your prison? Is it alcohol, or drugs, or gambling, or pornography, or depression, or an abusive relationship? What is keeping you from being free?

 And how have you reacted when you did receive compassion? How did you feel when you found that many people you didn’t even know had been praying for you? Were you able to recognize the little ways that people touched your life for the good? Have you been able to look back upon your suffering this year and found some redeeming value to it? Sometimes the way we react to others’ giving to us determines the way that we heal. Have we allowed others to do for us?

So, it goes round and round. We are called to be compassionate, and we are called to receive compassion. We are called to see to the needs of those around us, and to have our own needs fulfilled by others. That’s the way God set it up. We can’t do it by ourselves. We’re all in this together. It’s pure genius. God knew that we’d screw things up when he gave us free will; he knew we’d hurt each other. He knew we’d be selfish, so he showed us the way to selflessness. St. Paul tells us that just as through a selfish man all died, through a selfless man all have been given eternal life. It was through the selfless death of Jesus Christ that death has been conquered forever.

That’s the message we’re left with on this last Sunday of the year. That whatsoever we do to the least of our brothers and sisters, we do unto Jesus. Because Jesus did the same for us. I think that’s something that priest in Anaheim and I can agree on.

You're Welcome

30^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle A

The idea of welcoming has taken center stage at the Extraordinary Synod of the Family the past two weeks. And as usual the headlines have been sensational. Fill in the blank for the special interest group who is dissatisfied. This cardinal said something this group thought was unwelcoming. That bishop said something that group thought was welcoming, and so forth. The word of the day seems to be welcome.

I think we are all looking for welcome from our church. We all have our issues and problems and are broken by our sins. Why do some feel so excluded? What does it mean to be welcoming? I think it means different things to different people. To some it means live and let live. To others it means hate the sin but love the sinner. Many people want the church to change to meet their lifestyle choices, rather than them changing their lives to conform to the gospel. Some people have a political agenda. Some people are just plain mean.

Today we hear from the book of Exodus the call to hospitality. Do not oppress the alien among you, for you were once aliens yourself. Hospitality – welcoming the stranger – is a core virtue for Middle Eastern societies even today. Even before they were the chosen people, the Hebrews were wandering Bedouins. When they wandered around the desert, they relied upon the hospitality of other Bedouins sometimes for their very survival. And so being hospitable was a matter of life or death, and elaborate rituals sprung up around the welcoming of strangers.

Welcome strangers when their lives depend on it so that strangers will welcome you when your life depends on it. Isn’t that what loving you neighbor as yourself is all about? Don’t our lives depend upon it?

Every time I hold a class preparing parents for the baptism of their children, I try to get them to understand the awesomeness of their decision and exactly what they are committing to do. I’d say that most of them have been away from the Church for some time, but something about the responsibility of becoming a parent has made them come back to have their children baptized. We talk a lot about what it means to be a Catholic and what their rights and responsibilities are as a Catholic.

Many of them are surprised that they have rights as a baptized person. All they’d ever thought about was their responsibilities; the rules they have to follow. But one of the key rights we discuss is their right to feel welcome in the church. Usually they say that welcoming means being non-judgmental. They want to feel at home in the church itself. They want to walk in, even if they haven’t been in church for a long time, and feel that they have a place there.

And we don’t talk about why they haven’t been to Mass. We talk about how the baptism of their children is a new beginning, not just for their sons and daughters but for their entire families. We don’t get into any issues or misunderstandings they may have, that’s for later. We just ask them to come and see and be open to the gospel. The Mass is not the time or place to have a discussion with someone about their lifestyle choices. But we don’t sweep those issues under the rug. We talk about them in a different venue.

We try to welcome people like Jesus welcomed them. For Jesus, there was always an action and a reaction. He welcomed tax collectors and sinners into his company of disciples, but he then called them to reform their lives. He knew that by welcoming them he was not necessarily condoning their former lives. He was more concerned with what they were going to do from that point on.

“Come and see,” he says. Come join my disciples. And when you do come and see it is our job to give you the entire picture. And it is your job to seriously consider the gospel and then decide whether or not you can accept it and live it. The same Jesus who said I have not come to condemn you is the same Jesus who said “Will you also leave?” Remember that in John’s gospel all but 12 rejected Jesus’ message. Jesus didn’t water down the gospel just to pacify them. He called them to make a choice. He calls us to the same choice.

You know, it wasn’t just the tax collectors and sinners that Jesus welcomed and called to him. It was also good, church going folks like you and me. Just as the apostles sometimes had an “us-vs-them” mentality, seeing themselves as the righteous but the outsiders as sinners who had to reform, we do the same thing. We’re the good folks who have to welcome the bad folks, so that they can become like us. But we’re all sinners, we all have our own issues and problems, and we all have to welcome one another.

I think we all want the church to welcome our ideas and positions, but are we welcoming to the church as we try live the life of the gospel? We all want the church to change, but are we willing to change?

There is a story of a mystic, Maria Simma, who supposedly could communicate with the souls in purgatory. Sort of like in the movie The Sixth Sense. Typically she only listened to the souls when they came to her asking for prayers that they be released, but one day a woman came to the mystic asking her specifically about two people, a woman and a man from her town who had died several months earlier. Maria supposedly was able to contact these folks and reported back to the woman. She said that the woman had already been released into heaven but the man would have to stay in purgatory for a long, long time.

“How can that be?” the woman asked. “The woman was a notorious prostitute who committed suicide and the man was our parish priest, a very holy man! How could he still be in purgatory but the prostitute already be in heaven?” “Well,” the mystic answered, “the prostitute did kill herself by standing in front of an oncoming train, but her last words were ‘At least now, Lord, you won’t have to be disappointed in me any longer.’ But the parish priest refused her a Christian funeral and burial because of who she was and what she had done.”

This may be just a story, but I think you get the point. Mercy always triumphs over judgment. The Diocese of Springfield, Illinois released a study last month that tracked the main reasons people had left their parish and ultimately the Church. The number one reason given was something the priest or deacon had said or done  that offended the person.

I know that there have been times when I blew it. Technically I was right when I explained a certain teaching to someone with questions, but the way I said it or the venue I chose to say it in was wrong. Sometimes we are so busy we just fire off a curt response or comment without thinking about what the person is really asking or experiencing. That can come off as callous and unwelcoming. Sometimes we are just inflexible, self-righteous legalists, so sure in ourselves and our positions, and we drive people away. Most of the time we’re not even aware of what we’re doing. We just never see the folks again.

And oftentimes the teachings of the church seem unwelcoming because it’s not “anything goes”. The church does not change with the world; we are called to change the world. And just as Jesus did not accept every lifestyle as good -“Go and sin no more” - the church of Christ cannot either. But sometimes the way we say it is unthinking or highly theological or non-pastoral. That doesn’t mean the teaching is wrong, just our way of doing it may be. We can’t change the truth, but we can change our intent.

We need to be aware of our intent. Are we just being self-righteous or do we truly care about the person when we try to explain or correct? It is a struggle these days to balance welcoming. It takes effort and thoughtfulness and kindness. The message of the gospel is all inclusive and we’re all struggling to receive it and live it. All we are is one beggar helping another beggar to find bread.

And it takes time. When we welcome someone into our home, especially if it is a new guest, we usually spend a bit of time with them. We don’t leave them standing on the doorstep. We invite them in, take their coat, offer them something to eat and drink, and get to know them better. We engage in conversation, not condemnation. And we usually are on our best behavior. How easy it is to discount someone and their situation in the age of social media. How often do we lovingly take the time to truly welcome someone who is struggling?

But hospitality is not giving your guest the run of the house. The owner of the house opens the door but the visitor needs to respect the owner and the house. Making yourself at home does not mean you can trash the place. In that way both show hospitality.

Pope Francis was in the middle of the whirlwind surrounding the Synod on the Family. The core questions was always, “What will Francis do? What side will he come down on?” We he support our agenda or theirs?” Well, in true Francis style, he embraced and welcomed everyone as Jesus did. This is what he said.

 “And this is the Church, the vineyard of the Lord, the fertile Mother and the caring Teacher, who is not afraid to roll up her sleeves to pour oil and wine on people’s wounds; who doesn’t see humanity as a house of glass to judge or categorize people. This is the Church, One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and composed of sinners, needful of God’s mercy. This is the Church, the true bride of Christ, who seeks to be faithful to her spouse and to her doctrine. It is the Church that is not afraid to eat and drink with prostitutes and publicans. The Church that has the doors wide open to receive the needy, the penitent, and not only the just or those who believe they are perfect! The Church that is not ashamed of the fallen brother and pretends not to see him, but on the contrary feels involved and almost obliged to lift him up and to encourage him to take up the journey again and accompany him toward a definitive encounter with her Spouse, in the heavenly Jerusalem.”

 

 

I Hate This Cross

Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Cycle A

I have just made a beautiful cross for a Catholic church remodeling project I am doing in Malibu, California. It is made of solid black walnut, and is in the shape of a modified Maltese cross, you know, the one with the flared out ends. I chose the wood for it carefully to accentuate the grain. There is even an intricate burl on the lower portion. I put a hand rubbed finish on it to make it look warm and smooth. It truly is a beautiful cross.

I hate this cross.

I hate it because of what I have to do to it next. This cross is to serve as the main sanctuary crucifix in the church, and so it has to be changed from a cross into a crucifix. I have to attach the corpus, or carved figure of Christ, to the cross. That’s what makes it a crucifix. And I have to do it by actually nailing the corpus to the wood of the cross. I have done this several times before with other crosses, and each time I get a feeling of anxiety while doing it. I hate to nail Jesus to the cross.

You may have heard that during the filming of the movie, The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson actually held the nails in place as they were being driven into Jesus’ hands, signifying that his sins, and ours, are what affix Jesus to his cross. It is a humbling thought. Every time I nail the hands and feet of the corpus to the cross I think, “What kind of a God do I have? What kind of a God would suffer so much just for me, so that I have the possibility of being with him forever in heaven, even though it is my sins that put him on that cross?”

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might not perish
but might have eternal life.

The cross has always been the central focus of the church, from the earliest days. The passion narratives were the first stories told by the Christians. When they told the story of the Christ they didn’t start with his birth. In fact, only two of the gospels even mention Jesus’ birth. They started with his passion and death. From early on the Church recognized the significance of Jesus’ death, and they honored it.

I hate this cross because it is too beautiful.

We have sanitized the cross. The cross of Calvary was an ugly thing. Rough and coarse and covered in blood. The crosses we see today are so beautiful we wear them as jewelry. They have lost meaning for most people. Even non-Christians and gang bangers wear them because they like the look of them. But usually the jewelry we wear are crosses, not crucifixes. We wear our crosses on the outside of our clothing. We wear our crucifixes under our clothing, next to our hearts. Why?

Are we afraid to show the world the true nature of our belief? Are we still scandalized by the horror of the truth of our Savior’s suffering? Without the cross there is no Christianity. Some Christians try to remove the cross from their theology. They talk of abundance and prosperity and how loving God will give you all the good things in life. They don’t want to face the reality of the suffering God, because they don’t want to face the reality of their own suffering. It’s almost like the embarrassing secret in the family that everyone knows but nobody talks about.

We hate the cross because of what it calls us to do. Jesus said that if we are to be his disciples we must pick up our crosses every day and follow him. He did not ask us to do anything he himself was not willing to do. If we are to follow the Master we must follow him in everything.

Jesus hated the cross, too. He didn’t want to carry it. He didn’t want to be nailed to it. He didn’t want to die on it. He didn’t want to suffer so much physical pain. He didn’t want to suffer the pain of taking all our sins upon himself. But he did. He asked that the cup be taken from him if that were his Father’s will. But when he realized that the Father wanted him to suffer upon the cross, he accepted that decision and embraced it.

Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death,
even death on a cross.

We don’t go looking for our crosses, either. They just are. The cross is a fact of life, brought upon by the sinfulness of the world. We will have to take up our crosses every day whether we want to or not. The key to Jesus’ statement is not that we will have to take up our crosses but that we are to follow him after doing so. Jesus didn’t want to take up his cross, but he knew that he would have to, and so he made it worthwhile to do so. The cross to Jesus was not a sign of defeat but of victory. The resurrection gave worth to the cross. The hope of our own resurrection gives worth to our crosses.

It’s important that our images are crucifixes, not crosses. We Catholics have bodies on our crosses, because the importance of the cross is not the cross itself but the person on it. We do not shy away from Jesus’ death. We honor it. Jesus didn’t shy away from his own death. And he was glorified because of that. We know that if Jesus had not died on that cross we would not be saved. No matter how horrible that death was, it still had the greatest meaning for all humanity.

The genius of God’s plan of salvation for us is that he has taken the very thing that is the result of our failure – suffering and death – and has turned it into the vehicle of our greatest victory. Jesus was lifted up physically on that cross on Calvary, and because of that he was lifted up in exaltation in heaven. Why not us? If Jesus expects us to follow him on his way of the cross why wouldn’t he also want us to share in his exaltation?

Archbishop Fulten Sheen said that all people are born in order to live. Only one man, Jesus, was born to die. We have a beginning and our purpose is life. Jesus’ purpose was to die, and everything he did in his life led to his death.

And that is why we have a feast of the exaltation of the holy cross. Because without the cross there could be no resurrection. Without death there can be no life. The humiliation of the cross is actually the glory of Christ. If Jesus had not died on the cross he would not have been exalted. Without the cross we will not be exalted, either. And so we honor the cross and what it symbolizes, what it reminds us of. It shows us that ultimately, God wins. Ultimately, we win. A worthless piece of wood has become the sign of our own worthiness.

The cross is the ultimate sign of our obedience to the will of the Father. It was Jesus’ ultimate gift to the Father. And it is Jesus’ ultimate gift to us. In the cross we are truly one with Jesus as he is one with the Father. In the cross is the sign of our own unity with God. We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

And that’s why I love this cross.

Taming the Whirlwind

19^th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Cycle A

It’s all around us. It comes at us from all sides and permeates all areas of our lives. It shakes us and buffets us and causes us great anxiety. It’s the thing we worry about the most and the thing that keeps us up at night. It affects all our relationships both positively and negatively. And it’s the thing that can keep us away from God, if we let it. It’s the whirlwind.

The whirlwind is our daily lives. It’s the stuff of our existence these days. It’s the meetings and reports, the emails and texts and phone calls and tweets and Facebook. It’s the kid’s homework and dry cleaning and figuring out what’s for dinner. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. It just is. We live within it and it lives within us. We need to live within it because that’s how our lives get done. But it is the immediate, the now. Oftentimes is what we reflexively do without much thought. But it’s not big-picture stuff. It’s not reflective or deep. For that we have to step out of the whirlwind for a time.

The whirlwind prepares us to meet God. It makes us ready to let go completely and reach out to God to save us. Elijah went and stood at the mouth of the cave. Peter stepped out of the boat.

Elijah is worried today. He has just run away to Mt. Horeb, escaping from the king who he thinks is trying to kill him. You see, Elijah has been saying some very politically incorrect things about the king lately, and the king has a way of killing off prophets who don’t please him. In fact, he has threatened to do just that to Elijah, so he has run off into the desert to hide. But he has forgotten to bring any food with him, so he lays down in the desert under a broom tree and asks God to let him die. Instead, God sends an angel to him with food and water. After eating and drinking, Elijah then has enough strength to travel forty days and forty nights to Mt. Horeb. Once there, he hides in a cave. And worries.

He worries that the people won’t listen to him. He worries that he will be killed if he is found. He worries about having enough to eat and drink. He worries about what might be living in the back of the cave. But most of all, he worries about what God might ask him to do. As he cowers there, the word of God comes to him and tells him, “What are you doing here? Go outside and wait for me.”

Elijah goes out and waits, worrying about what God will send his way. Will it be an earthquake, shaking him from his safe perch and forcing him to go and shake up the kingdom some more? Will it be fire, a burning deep within him that cannot be contained, that consumes him and compels him to speak the word of God? Will it be a driving wind, blowing him around helplessly before it, forcing him to give up control of his life to the Lord? Elijah looks for the Lord in the whirlwind, but he’s not there.

Then a tiny whispering sound is heard. It says, “Come Outside”.

Peter is worried today. For a while now he has been wondering just who this person Jesus is. He sees the miracles, hears the teachings, yet he just isn’t sure. Peter is worried about a lot of things. He has left behind his family and his business. How will they survive without him? People in Capernaum are laughing at him, running off after some teacher like a fool. Doesn’t he know he isn’t a child anymore? He has responsibilities. And Peter is unsure of himself. He always seems to be running off at the mouth, saying the wrong thing. Just the other day Jesus called him Satan, when all he was trying to do was show his concern for Jesus. He was so ashamed that he hung back in the crowd, embarrassed to even look Jesus in the eye.

It’s almost like this storm on the lake. Peter feels out of control. He feels buffeted by the winds and the waves of daily life that seem to be against him. But then the Word of God comes to him also, just like Elijah, and says to him, “Come”. Not what he wants to hear. Peter wants to cower in the safety of the boat, not venture out upon the very waters that threaten him. He worries that they will engulf him, and you know what, they do. He starts to sink. I guess that 1 percent caught up with him.

Then a tiny whispering sound is heard. “Don’t Worry.” And he is saved.

What do you do when you are worried? How do you handle the anxieties and uncertainties of the whirlwind? Do you run away and hide in your cave? Do you cower in your boat? Is everything blown out of proportion? Is everything an earthquake, or fire, or a driving wind to you? Where do you find peace?

We need to step out of the whirlwind in order to re-root ourselves in what is truly important. We need a firm foundation in the Lord in order to handle the whirlwind. And to do so we must find silence. Elijah found the Lord in the quiet. Jesus went off into the desert in solitude to pray. The apostles recognized Jesus as truly the Son of God only after he had quieted the storm.

Jesus can quiet the whirlwind.

But it’s we who have to get out of the boat. Jesus says “Come” and we have to step out in faith. The most effective way to quiet the whirlwind is through prayer. Many of us exercise regularly, or try to. We know that in order to be effective, we must exercise on a defined schedule at a specific time and place. And it requires self -discipline. It’s the same with prayer.

I think we tend to think of prayer as something we do, not something we experience. We talk too much when we pray, probably because we may be uncomfortable with it. Prayer is more a state of being than an action. And it requires silence.

How many of you have a place in your home where you pray? Maybe it’s in your bedroom or den, in your favorite chair. My prayer room is my den, with my comfy recliner, surrounded by pictures of my family and closest friends. I have a relic of St. Padre Pio that my father gave me. A bird feeder is right outside the window. I have found that the quietest time in our house is early in the morning, before the busyness of the day begins. And so years ago I started getting up about a half hour before anyone else, pour myself a cup of coffee, and retreat into my prayer den for a few minutes of quiet.

Sometimes I pray the liturgy of the hours, sometimes I say a rosary, and sometimes I just sit there and say “Good morning, Lord.” And then I just look at Him and He looks at me. For me, that’s enough of a daily grounding before I hit the whirlwind. Or it hits me.

The best part of regular prayer is you can’t do it wrong. You will look in many places for God. You will try to find him in the whirlwind. But the best place to find him is here, in your heart. If you start looking for Him within, soon you will recognize him more in your relationships, in your work, in your everyday life.

And that’s how you tame the whirlwind.

Point of View

Feast of the Transfiguration

 

It really depends upon your point of view, doesn’t it?

Have you ever had your life changed because you suddenly saw things a bit differently? Many times we get caught up in the ordinary of our everyday lives and miss the truth of what’s going on around us.

Steven Covey of Franklin Covey fame and author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People tells of an experience he had on a New York subway one Sunday morning. He says that people were sitting quietly. Some were reading newspapers, some were dozing, others were simply contemplating with their eyes closed. It was a rather peaceful, calm scene. At one stop a man and his children entered the car. The children were soon yelling back and forth, throwing things, even grabbing people’s newspapers. It was all very disturbing and yet the father just sat there next to him and did nothing. It was not difficult to feel irritated. Steve could not believe the man could be so insensitive as to let his children run wild and do nothing about it. It was easy to see that everyone else in the car was annoyed as well. So finally, with what he thought was admirable restraint and patience, Steve said to the man, “Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn’t control them a little bit more?” The man lifted his gaze as if coming out of a dream and said, “Oh, you’re right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don’t know what to think and I guess they don’t know how to handle it either.”

Steven says, “Can you imagine what I felt at that moment? Suddenly I saw things differently. Because I saw differently, I felt differently. I behaved differently. My irritation vanished. I didn’t have to worry about controlling my attitude or my behavior. My heart was filled with this man’s pain. Feelings of compassion and sympathy flowed freely. ‘Your wife just died? Oh, I’m so sorry! Can you tell me about it? What can I do to help?’”

That was Steven Covey’s moment of transfiguration, a moment of revelation that sustained him in a difficult situation. Peter, James and John had the vision of Jesus’ transfiguration to sustain them during the difficult times to come. The next time Jesus took the three of them off with him by themselves was in the Garden of Gethsemanie. But what about us? After all, we could put up with an awful lot if we had a remembered moment of glory to sustain us, a clear indication of who Jesus really is, some sign that when it was all over, everything would be all right. What’s our transfiguration moment?

To be transformed is to be changed. To be transfigured is to see things differently, as they really are. Peter couldn’t see clearly up there on the mountain. But over time, with a lot of prayer, pondering, suffering and preaching the good news, he came to see Jesus for who he really is. Jesus didn’t change. Peter’s understanding did. Because he saw differently, he felt differently, and because he felt differently, he behaved differently.

And how Peter had changed from the time of this gospel account until he wrote his letters decades later! In the gospel, he’s really scared. He falls down to the ground in fear, and says some pretty silly things. He didn’t really know what to say, he didn’t understand what was happening before him.

The Peter we hear in his second letter is very different. Gone is the simple fisherman from Capernaum. Gone is the rough man unsure of himself. He is calm, confident, and collected. He is no longer the frightened disciple, he has become the leader. He has been bringing others to knowledge of Jesus, and he is reassuring them that his message is true. Something happened to him, and James and John as well, after they saw Jesus differently, after they saw him for who he truly is, that changed the very direction of their lives.

And if you thought it scared Peter to see Jesus as he really was, how do you think it made him feel as he himself was transfigured? It can be frightening to learn who you really are, who you are called to be for the world. Peter had come to know what it means to be truly human. To be truly human is to be like God. And Peter saw what that God was doing. He was teaching, preaching, working tirelessly to bring the gospel to the people. Desperate to have his children truly know him for who he was. He was putting his life on the line daily, and he finally lost that life in a horrible way.

Is that what was in store for Peter if he lived out his true humanity? Is that what’s in store for all of us? Peter didn’t know. But he, James and John had a decision to make. They could take their newfound knowledge of Jesus and continue to follow him, or they could go away, back to their livelihoods. Or worse yet, they could drift off to the fringes of his followers, simply tagging along without taking on any of the responsibilities of discipleship.

On a more ordinary note, Steven Covey also had a choice to make that Sunday morning. He could have hid in his embarrassment and just sat there and said nothing, done nothing. He could have gone on with his life without reaching out to a family in pain, but he chose to try to comfort them instead. We don’t know how the story ends, what happened to that man and his children, whether they were able to cope with their loss. But we do know that that incident changed Steve Covey so much so that he remembers it and recounts it over and over again. It transfigured him.

We all have the same decision to make. Sooner or later we’ll be hit with the realization of who Jesus really is in our lives, and we’ll have to decide what to do next. That realization might be found in a passage of scripture, it may be found here at Mass, or during a serious illness or family crisis. It may be a simple acceptance that grows out of many years of quietly walking with the Lord. But our lives will transfigured. And we can either continue in our old ways of living, we can drift off to the fringes of the community without taking on the added responsibilities that discipleship brings, or we can embrace those responsibilities and reach out to others as the Master did.

 

 

 

Seeds of Justice

16^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle A

Why do you come here and not to some other church? Why St. Mary’s and not St. Ann’s or St. Ambrose, or Shepherd of the Mountains or St. Luke’s? Most likely it is because you like the people. And most likely you like the people because someone has been kind to you here. Kindnesses are the little things we do for people just because we like them or respect them or care about them.

And we also perform little kindnesses to people we don’t even know all the time, don’t we? We hold the door open for them, we smile at them in the checkout line, we make a comment about how beautiful their baby is. We don’t do these little things because we want something in return. We do them just because that’s how we treat other human beings, just because they are human beings. We don’t even think about it, we just do it.

We hear in the book of wisdom today that justice is played out as kindness. We hear a lot about social justice these days, and not just in the religious sense. The big budget battles going on in Washington lately are couched in the language of social justice. What is fair. But justice is not fairness. It’s not about leveling the playing field or taking from the rich to give to the poor. True justice means giving all people what they are entitled to, just because they are human beings with inherent dignity. We tend to think of justice in terms of crime and punishment, but to God, justice is simply treating you as his child, just because you are his child. And because you are his child you enjoy certain rights and are bound by certain responsibilities.

And just because you think you have a right to do something does not make it just. Justice is allowing you to live the way you were intended to live. Just because you want to live a certain way doesn’t mean you were meant to live that way. Just because you want to do it does not make it right. And so sometimes justice seems unfair, because we don’t always want to live as we were meant to. Sometimes justice means we have to say no. Sometimes justice means someone needs to tell us no.

What makes a person kind? I think the thing people desire most is to feel that they are special and appreciated. We are kind when or actions make people feel that way. Most of us don’t go around working for the great causes of justice, but the mustard seeds of justice are the little kindnesses we do for other people. We can protest on the steps of the capitol, or pray in front of the abortion clinic, but it is kindness that changes people hearts. We change the world when we change the individual human heart. And we do that through kindness.

Have you ever had someone’s kindness to you affect your entire day? Has someone ever said or done something to you that just made you feel good about yourself, and changed your outlook on the day? Have you seen the commercials that show people in a city going about their day and one person does something to help a stranger, like pick up a dropped package or something, and then that person helps another person, and that one helps someone else, until finally it comes back around so that someone is nice to the first person who started it all? Paying it forward? That’s how grace works. That’s how our faith is lived out each day. Yes, we are called to stand up against the great evils of the day, but we act most like God when we do simple kindnesses for people.

These little kindnesses are the mustard seeds of justice. If we see the person in the checkout line as someone worthy of respect just because they are them, it makes it easier to make those bigger, tougher decisions later on, even reaching up to Capitol Hill. Social justice literally begins at home. And if kindness is the way we bring forth justice then we must begin by being kind to those closest to us. There are two types of kindness, active and passive. The greatest active kindness we do is to pray for the needs of others. Then there are the little kindnesses we do for those we love. We bring our spouse a cup of coffee in the morning; we pick up after our kids without complaining; we hold the door for someone at the office. But kindness can also be what we don’t do. We don’t blow up when our teenager comes home after curfew. We patiently wait for our wives to put on their makeup. We have compassion and understanding for the friend who is having a hard day.

It may be the small gestures that help us build our faith, too. We all have faith that began small. Grace is like that. The grace we are given never really goes away. It stays in us, and, like yeast, can cause the entirety of our faith to grow. We have no way of knowing if something that was given to us very early on is what we need today in order to make correct decisions.

That’s one reason we baptize infants. Something profound happens to our souls when we are baptized, and God’s grace enters into our lives in a very special way. A baby is incapable of sinning, however, by wiping away original sin God allows his grace to affect us, so that as we grow we will be more able to make correct decisions. The seeds planted in us as children affect the decisions we make as teenagers and adults.

A life of virtue is made up of thousands of small virtuous decisions, just as a life of evil is made up of thousands of incorrect decisions.  Just as faith starts out as a very small seed, an idea planted in our hearts which can then affect our entire lives and the lives of the entire human race, so too evil. People are not born evil, we are all born good, and rarely do people make the decision to act evilly all at once in a big way. You don’t just wake up one day and decide to kill someone. Instead, we make decision upon decision upon decision throughout our lives, often beginning as children, that bring us to an evil, or good end.

Faith starts with a very small idea, and then affects all our other ideas as well. Someone once said that there is nothing more powerful in the world than an idea whose time has come. I’d say that there is nothing more powerful than a single person’s faith. The faith of one person affects their entire family, their workplace, their neighborhood, town, and nation. And I think that is the message of hope we hold for the world. Because while that yeast is only a fraction of the ingredients used in the bread, it causes the entire loaf of dough to rise. The world seems to be growing more and more indifferent to God every day. The rest of the dough isn’t very good, but all it takes is us, that small measure of yeast, to help it all to rise. Do you know that there is a bakery in San Francisco that has been making sourdough bread with the same hunk of mother yeast for the past 100 years! The yeast even gives rise to itself, and they keep it in a special refrigerator under lock and key, because without that special yeast the bread would not have its particular taste and texture.

The Church is like that. Though the dough of the world has been mostly poor throughout history, the yeast of the Church has helped it to rise. We must guard it and cherish it and protect it so that it can continue to give mankind its special taste and texture. Our yeast is what God uses to bring justice to the world.

Christians are like mustard seeds. We can and are the yeast for the entire world. The world is a big place, but our faith can raise up the entire world, even if there are only a few of us left. Remember, Jesus started with twelve.

Jesus was kind. If you think back about all he did in his life what he really was was a kind man. He did things, great and small, for other people just because they deserved it simply because they were his children. Pope Paul VI said if you want peace work for justice. I will add, and do it by being kind to one another.

Margaret Mead said, "Never doubt that small groups of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed it's the only thing that ever has." We can change the world, one heart at a time. And the first heart that must change is my own.

Elevator Story

6th Sunday of Easter

Cycle A

There is a television show out there right now called Shark Tank. In it, people with a new product or business pitch their ideas to a panel of successful business owners and investors, in the hope that one of them will fund their new venture. They do not have a lot of time to do it, either. They have to distill their idea into a short presentation, hoping that they can convince someone to give them a lot of money.

Another name for this is the elevator talk. A wise businessman once said that if you have a business or an idea you should be able to come up with a two minute description of it, just in case you are ever in an elevator with someone who can give you the money and resources you need to get to the next level. Someone like Donald Trump or Warren Buffet. Imagine that you are alone with one of them for two minutes in an elevator and they ask you what you do. What would you say? This is your only chance to influence them and your entire future is riding on the outcome. What would you say?

Peter is saying the same thing today in our second reading. He tells his disciples, “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.” Have you ever tried to distill your belief in Jesus Christ into one or two sentences? It is easy to drone on and on about something. It takes a lot of effort and thought to come up with a short description of your faith.

Why are you a Christian? Why are you specifically a Catholic? I talk to people all the time when they are preparing to have their children baptized, and I ask them that very question. Some say it is because they were raised Catholic, and it is all they know and they feel comfortable with it. Others say it is because of the rich tradition of the Church. They like the rituals and the symbols and the history. Others say it is because they have come to believe that the fullness of the truth of Jesus Christ is found in the Catholic Church, and so they follow.

But isn’t it all about hope? What do you hope for? In the gospel today Jesus boils down what it means to be a disciple. He gives us his elevator speech. He says, “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you.” Do you realize what he is saying to you? Not only is Jesus in the Father, but Jesus is in you and you are in him. That means you are in God and God is in you. You are godlike.

Do you realize how radical that idea is? No other religion makes such a claim. The Eastern religions are all about transcending into something higher than yourself, but you do not become God. Islam’s image of God is removed from humanity. Islam’s God cannot be truly known. We claim that we actually become one with God. Not with nature or with some philosophy of living, but with the creator Himself.

How is that for an elevator speech? Imagine that you are riding in an elevator alone with a stranger, and he asks you why you are wearing that crucifix around your neck. And you say, “Because I am a Catholic.” And he then asks you why you are a Catholic and you say, “Because I have a hope and knowledge that I am one with God, both here and for all eternity. And I believe that because I am a disciple of Jesus Christ and of His Church.” Either the person will turn away and think you are some kind of a nut or you will start a very interesting conversation.

Peter told his disciples to be ready with their elevator stories for two reasons: first, because people are looking for simple explanations for things. If you open a copy of the Catechism and start reading it to that person in the elevator they will get off on the next floor, even if it is not their floor. Details can come later if there is interest. Keep it simple and you will influence people. The other reason Peter said this is because he wanted us to stop and take the time to really think about why we are followers of Christ. Get down to the kernal of truth that underlies our belief and distill it down to what really matters.

Once you have come up with your elevator story, write it down on a piece of paper and hang it on the wall where you will see it each and every day of your life. This will keep you focused on it and will also give you encouragement when you suffer difficulties because of your beliefs. Remember that Peter also said, “But do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who defame your good conduct in Christ may themselves be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that be the will of God, than for doing evil.”

Not if you are maligned, but when. Discipleship always comes with a cost.

Jesus said today that we are his friends if we keep his commandments. At first I found that odd. Who puts conditions like that on their friendship? But then I realized that we all do. We all put conditions on our friendships with others. I command you to share the same interests as me. I command you to have the same political beliefs as me. I command you to be of the same race or nationality as me. If you do not follow my commandments for you then we really can have no relationship.

But Jesus’ commandment is this: Love one another as I have loved you. Jesus’ commandment is not focused on himself but on our relationships with others. Because He knows that if we love one another we will love Him. If we truly love one another as He loves us we will be in Him as he is in the Father. But I think we often use this commandment to avoid the really hard choices in life. Perhaps because it is so open ended and broad we can use it to duck our responsibility to our fellow man.

Many people use the command to love one another as an excuse to be tolerant of any behavior in the name of love. We say that Jesus showed his love for people by accepting everybody. They point to the story of the woman caught in adultery and quote Jesus as saying, “Neither do I condemn you” but ignore his commandment to “Go and sin no more.” If Jesus accepted people’s bad behavior why did he have to die for our sins?

Jesus did not place limits on his love, but his love will naturally place limits on us. Love means gently guiding and correcting each other when we stray from commandments that we know are good for us. Just as a loving parent will limit a child’s behavior for the good of the child, so too does God place limits on our behaviors.

But it takes courage when we are called to stand up for good behavior over bad, and that is why we use the “Who am I to judge?” card. Jesus gave us many commandments, you know. He told us to go out and make disciples of all nations, he said to do this in memory of me, he said he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. And yet we hate to evangelize other people because we do not really believe that our truth is the truth. We miss Mass on Sundays for no good reason. And we think that loving our neighbor as ourselves means that we can ignore all those inconvenient ten commandments about lying and stealing and killing the innocent and adultery. Because who am I to judge others? Just because something is right for me does not mean it is right for anybody else. And besides, how relevant are those ancient laws for us anyway?

We will all be called to give an account of what we believe, and for what we have done with that belief. Imagine that you have died and are standing before the Lord for judgment. What if he only gives you two minutes to explain to him why you are his disciple? Your eternal future depends on what you say. Could you do it? Could you boil down your entire life of faith into one paragraph? And would that be convincing to God? What is your elevator story?

Remember that an elevator goes both up and down.