The 3 Cs

 

32^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle C

2 Macc 7: 1-2, 9-14

2 Thess 2: 16-3:5

Lk 20: 27-38

 

There are some things worth dying for.

 

We hear a story today of great courage based upon strong faith and conviction. The story of the Maccabees isn’t read very often in our liturgy, and in fact, is not even included in Protestant bibles, so you may not be very aware of it. Our first reading today is pretty gruesome, and we only hear the middle of the story. There were actually seven brothers and their mother, and the mother was forced to watch all of her sons be killed before she herself was killed. Why were these poor people being tortured and killed, and what had led them to make the decision to resist so stubbornly?

After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, there was a struggle for control of Israel, Egypt and Syria. Eventually the Seleucids from Syria gained control and began a program of Hellenization that sought to force the Jews to abandon their monotheism for the Greek’s paganism. They erected a shrine to the Greek god Zeus in the temple in Jerusalem, outlawed circumcision, and forced the Jews to either eat pork as a sign of abandoning their law or be tortured and killed. That is the choice that faced the seven brothers in today’s reading.

To the Jews, this was more than just a religious struggle. This was a struggle for their identity as a people. They saw the Law as being both a sign of their fidelity to God and a symbol of themselves as a nation. It is easy to see why they would resist the Greek’s effort to assimilate them. They could not in good conscience go against the Law. They chose death over assimiliation.

They were willing to die for their faith. They had such strong conviction that they were able to withstand horrible pain and suffer death rather than go against the central tenant of their being – faithfulness to God. Do you have such a conviction about anything in your life? Is there anything you would be willing to die for? I think most of us would give our lives for those we love, especially for our family. At least we like to believe we would. But most of us will never be faced with that choice. I know I haven’t and really don’t ever want to be. I have a thing about pain. I can relate with the quote from Flannery O’Connor, “I don’t think I can be a saint, but I think I could be a martyr if they kill me real quick”.

Hopefully we will never face that ultimate choice. Deliver us from evil, we pray. But life is full of thousands of less dire decisions that by themselves probably won’t tip the balance but taken together over our lifetimes actually affect how we will be judged by God. And the driver of all our decisions is our conscience.

When we consider questions of faith and morals, we always refer to the primacy of our conscience. We must follow our conscience. That is true, but that doesn’t absolve us from responsibility, in fact, it increases it. We are each responsible fully for our own decisions and actions. All our actions have consequences and therefore we shouldn’t make decisions, especially important decisions, lightly or without weighing things carefully. All the doctrines and dogmas, rules and regulations of the Church and society are there to inform and guide us, but we are responsible. We are the ones who will be judged by God for what we have done in this life, and so I guess ultimately it is our conscience that is the final arbiter of our decisions. But then our consciences are the final determiner of the consequences, too.

So many people use this reasoning as a rationalization and excuse to do whatever they like, because their conscience tells them it’s ok. You may follow your conscience down the wrong path. And sincerity has little to do with it. You might be very sincere in your beliefs, but you might be sincerely wrong. This is especially the case in today’s society where we believe that there are few or no immutable truths. All is relative to what I believe my conscience is telling me. That is not what we believe as Catholics. While we do believe in the primacy of conscience, that conscience must be formed correctly. It isn’t up to us what is right and what is wrong.

You will form your conscience whether you do it consciously or not. If you don’t do it yourself, it will be done for you by all the outside opinions and pressures of the world.  It is formed by your life experiences, your moral upbringing and belief, and your faith, or lack of faith, in God. As faithful Catholics, we are called to constantly be forming our consciences. It is not that right and wrong are constantly changing, it’s that our understanding of right and wrong develops and grows as we do. As Catholics, we are required to form our consciences within the teachings and guidance of the Church. Not because we blindly follow the law, but because, like the Maccabees, our faith defines who we are. Our relationship with God is central to our lives, because we are all called to build up the kingdom. We can abide by changes in thought and practice in society to a certain extent, but eventually we will be called upon to make a choice. It seems that more and more society’s norms are in direct opposition to our consciences. Some choices are easy and obvious, others are actually between life and death.

Just as conscience is not developed in a vacuum, it does not exist by itself. It should always be accompanied by courage and conviction. Conscience is what we turn to to make decisions, but we are then called to act on those decisions. Many times it is easier to make the decision than to do something about it. Where do we get the courage to act? Remember that decisions have consequences. Courage comes into play when we are aware of what might happen if we act.

Some things are worth fighting for.

There are two consequences to every action. One is the immediate consequence and the other is the eternal consequence. In today’s world, acting morally or in accordance with your faith has a real chance of getting you canceled, banned, ostracized, fired or even killed. There seem to be no more private actions. Everyone seems to be in everybody’s business. Even a simple comment to a social media post can destroy you. It takes courage to speak out and live the calling you received at your baptism to be a prophet, to speak truth to power and stand up for the oppressed. But that is what we are all called to do because of our baptism.

What gives courage its power and purpose is hope. Courage lives or dies based upon hope. We weigh the risks against the benefits and decide to act. Just as there are eternal consequences to our immoral choices, there is hope of eternal life in our moral choices. The thing that gave the Maccabees the courage to resist was their hope in what was to come. They believed that they would be raised again by their God to a glorious future. It was that hope that drove them to resist. It was that hope that gave them their courage. It was their courage that led to their conviction. We share that same hope in the resurrection. But do we share their conviction? Is our hope in eternal life with God enough to guide all our decisions, all our actions, even when faced with hardship and suffering?

Some things are worth living for.

Keep your eye on the prize. Our goal is no less than eternal life. All else in this life pales in comparison. Jesus said, “What does it profit a man if he should gain the whole world but lose his soul? Or what should a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Brothers and Sisters, may the Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father,

Who has loved us and given us lasting encouragement,

And good hope through his grace,

Encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word.

 

Finish Well

29^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle C

Ex 17:8-13

2 Tim 3:14-4:2

Lk 18:1-8

 

Jim Redmond died two weeks ago at the age of 81. He was the father of Derek Redmond, the British sprinter who tore his hamstring in the 400 meter qualifying race in the 1992 Olympics. Upon Jim’s death the media ran clips again of that emotional moment in Barcelona when Derek pulled up limping early in the race. He fell to the ground and writhed in pain, but what was really excruciating to see was the agony in his face, the crushing disappointment that all those years of struggle, pain, training and preparation had come crashing down in an instant. He would not fulfill his dream of an Olympic medal after all.

 

Derek could have just laid there, but he struggled to his feet and began limping around the track. That determination to finish would in and of itself have been an heroic example of drive and perseverance, but suddenly a middle aged man came running onto the track. It was his father, Jim, who ran up behind his son, put his arm around him, and helped him limp along towards the finish line. You can imagine he had been there throughout his son’s entire track career, from high school through college, sacrificing alongside Derek, supporting him in his goal of winning Olympic gold. But for Jim it was more than just disappointment. Like any loving father he also felt the pain of his son’s agony. Like any good father he needed to be there to console his son, but even moreso, to continue to support him in the face of disaster. Jim could have told his son to stop, to make the pain go away, to give up. But instead he put his arm around him as he wept and they limped down the track together.

 

Several officials tried to stop him, because helping Derek would disqualify him from the race. Jim kept pushing them away. It was not just Derek’s race; it was Jim’s as well. It didn’t matter if they were disqualified. They had to finish. That was all that mattered. They had started this race years ago together and they had to finish it together. Jim had been there to celebrate all of Derek’s wins, now he was there also at the lowest point in his life. All you heard Jim say was “He’s my son, he’s my son.”

 

Derek never competed effectively again, and if he had won that race you probably would not remember his name today. But his heroic drive to finish, his persistence in the face of terrible disappointment and pain, made his performance, and his father’s actions that day, immortal. So much so that 30 years later his father was remembered for it on the day he died, and the inspiration millions of people have received from that moment in time is his legacy.

 

It’s not how you start that matters, it’s how you finish.

 

Excellence in anything requires hard work, sacrifice, preparation and practice. We believe this, it’s in our DNA. We have something deep within us that drives us and inspires us to win. It’s more than just a competitive spirit; when we have a worthy goal or purpose we can achieve amazing, unbelievable, heroic results. We see it in all areas of our lives, in sports, in our work, in our relationships, and we idolize our heroes who reach the pinnacle of their dreams, especially if they have had to overcome overwhelming obstacles.

 

There’s a reason why that drive is so much a part of human nature. It’s not just so we can succeed in our earthly goals. God put that drive in us to help us achieve the ultimate goal in life of our own salvation. Never, ever, ever give up on your faith. All other endeavors pale in comparison. Never cease to pray, to study, to train, to practice your faith. It doesn’t matter what setbacks you encounter in life. Keep your eye on the goal and persevere to the end. It’s all about finishing the race.

 

When Jesus told the disciples how difficult it is to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, they threw up their hands in frustration and asked, “Then can anyone be saved?” Jesus gives us the key today. Be persistent in your prayer to the point of annoyance. Pray always and everywhere, pray constantly, make your entire life a prayer, never stop asking your Father for what you need, never stop praising him, never stop asking for forgiveness, never stop thanking him for his mercy. Never stop serving others. Never cease to love.

 

And if you tire, get your friends to help you. Like Moses in our first reading, when you just can’t keep doing it, when the battle seems lost, when there is no hope, surround yourself with people who will hold up your hands for you and keep you steady. Stay faithful together around the common goal and help each other get to heaven. Help each other be faithful. Faith cannot be experienced or lived outside of a community of believers. One person is not an army. Just as top athletes require coaching and support from others, you cannot be saved alone.

If we are truly to live the Kingdom of God, our faith cannot be something we just think about on Sundays or when we sit down at the dinner table. Our awareness of the presence of God must be foremost in our thoughts and in our actions. And so often it is the simple, mundane actions of our lives that can be the most heroic.

Be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient. We lost another hero this week. Fr. Gally died unexpectedly on Friday. You probably don’t know him, he was an immigrant from India who had served in our diocese for x years. One of his main ministries, other than being a pastor, was to visit the sick in the hospitals in Salt Lake City. My main experience with him was that each and every time I was looking for a priest to visit someone, especially someone who needed the anointing of the sick or last rites, Father Gally was the one who went. Immediately. No matter the time of day. He would drop everything and go. Whether it was convenient or not.

 

We usually expect that sort of devotion from our priests, don’t we? I mean, it’s their job, right? But they have the same busy lives as we do, they are pulled in so many different directions, they get tired and frustrated, too. Do we hold ourselves to the same standards? It’s inconvenient to drop everything to be by the side of a sick friend. Do it anyway. It’s hard to tear yourself away from your computer to listen to your teenager complain about what her friends did to her that day at school. Do it anyway. Never cease to do good. Never take your eye off of the people around you. Anticipate their needs. Never expect anything in return. Forgive one another constantly. Never hold back your love because you are not shown love in return. Never say it’s someone else’s job to care. It’s yours. Never rest on your laurels. Never give up on God because He has never and will never give up on you.

 

Image Jesus Christ who was persistent until the very end, giving his last ounce of strength and last drop of blood for your redemption. Even on the cross, he forgave those who were torturing him. Even if you run the race poorly you can finish well. He promised paradise to a criminal who at the very last moments of his life repented of his sins. Victory is yours for the taking if you never give up.

 

The story of Jim Redmond is a perfect metaphor for God. God is with us throughout our entire race. He coaches us, guides us, inspires us, and admonishes us. He rejoices with us in our victories and shares in our deepest disappointments and suffering. God doesn’t care how many times we fall and fail. He is there to pick us up from the ground, put his arm around us and limp along with us to the finish line. Like any good father would do. 

Know Your Place

 

22^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle C

Sir 3:17-18,20, 28-29

Heb 12:18-19,22-24a

Lk 14:1,7-14

 

Know your place

 

Christopher West tells the story of an old usher, Mr. Xavier, who served for many years at his local parish church. He was always grumpy about something. He had been an usher for as long as anyone could remember, and he took great pride in pointing out to any other usher that he had seniority. It was his way or no way. And boy, could he pack the people into those pews. He also had the nasty habit of walking up to the family of a crying baby and escorting them outside if they weren’t moving fast enough. Or of  bluntly telling a teenager she wasn’t dressed appropriately.

 

One Sunday morning Mass was particularly crowded. Folks were squeezed in as tight as they could be, and some were even forced to stand around the perimeter of the church. Just about halfway through the homily the back door opened and a young man entered. He was obviously homeless. His clothes were filthy, his hair unkempt, and his shoes were practically disintegrating off his feet. Bathing was a forgotten memory for him, evidenced by the way peoples’ heads snapped around in dismay as he shuffled past them.

 

On he walked down the aisle. Every time he passed a pew that had a little bit of room left in it the people on the end would shift over, closer to the aisle, blocking him out. Sometimes it was subtle, sometimes not. Finally he came to the front row, where you know there’s always a seat left. He sat down.

 

Suddenly there was Mr. X, striding purposely down the center aisle. He’d spotted the guy. All eyes turned and followed his progress towards the front of the church. You could practically hear the people thinking, “Xavier’ll get him. Watch this. He’ll practically drag him out if he has to. Maybe he’ll even rap him on the head a bit.” Everyone, even the priest, was watching, wondering how this would turn out.

 

Xavier came to the first row, stopped beside the young man, and simply sat down next to him. That’s all he did. Just sat down next to him, and he remained there throughout the rest of the Mass. No scene was made, no comment was spoken. He just sat there as he would’ve next to any other parishioner. And in that moment of humble acceptance Mr. Xavier gave that young man back his dignity.

 

I wonder where Jesus sat.

 

When he arrived at the banquet, what did he do first? Where did he sit? He didn’t have expensive clothes. His sandals were probably filthy from tramping around Galilee all day. He probably had not bathed in a while. And his group of friends were not much better off. The other guests were watching him closely. Why? Was it because he was a famous rabbi they were all curious to see? Was it because the Pharisees were waiting to trip him up on some point of law, to humiliate him in public? Or was it because he didn’t look like he fit in with the crowd. Sort of  like that homeless young man.

 

Did his host lead him to a place at his side, or did he leave him there to fend for himself, to find out where he fit in on his own? Was the parable he told just a piece of wisdom he had heard, or had his own experience taught him about humility and humiliation?

 

To Americans, humility is often seen as weakness. We train our children to have good self-images. We build their self-esteem by praising them constantly. Rarely do we teach them to submit. Rarely do we teach them to live within themselves. Rarely do we allow them to fail. Perhaps we have given them a false sense of themselves, making them self-centered rather than humble. Perhaps so many marriages fail because we do not know how to be humble with each other. We have never learned to be obedient to each other. We have never learned how to submit to each other. We are always trying to be something we’re not, scrambling for the best place, the biggest house, the shiniest car, the best job. We tend to cover up our insecurities and weaknesses with boastfulness.

 

 

I see and hear all those commercials for those online dating services. Every one of the testimonials in the ads says something to the effect “He loves me for who I am”, or “I finally found someone who accepts me for who I really am”. That’s a bit arrogant, isn’t it?  Most of us assume that our true selves are lovable. Are we asking people to accept us when we are unacceptable? Do we really lack so much self awareness?

 

Psalm 139 tells us that viewing ourselves truthfully, with sober judgment, means seeing ourselves the way God sees us. That’s humility. A humble person makes a realistic assessment of himself or herself without illusion or pretense to be something he or she is not. The humble regard themselves neither smaller nor larger than they truly are. Humility is acceptance. It is submission. It is obedience.

Humility is knowing your place and being ok with it. Humility is knowing your limitations, repenting and seeking forgiveness. God knows your limitations, and he loves you just the same, but He still requires something from you.

 

The greatest act of humility is repentance. The master does not ask the servant for forgiveness. You cannot be arrogantly sorry. In order to ask for forgiveness you must subjugate yourself and your ego to the other. You have to dig deep within yourself and be truly honest in your assessment of your behavior. And once you see how you have hurt the other, you have to swallow your pride and ask for forgiveness, knowing full well that you may be rejected.

 

And just as we are called to repentance, we are called even more to forgive. I tell young parents that the most important thing they can do for their children is to forgive them. From the very beginning, forgive them. If only once do they come to you and say they’re sorry and you hesitate, or you offer some condition, or say, “I forgive you…but”, you have lost their trust. They need to trust that no matter what they do, you will accept them back. They must trust if they are to repent. They must trust in your forgiveness if they are to ever have hope. If they can’t trust in your forgiveness, how can they trust in their future spouse’s or even God’s? We all want to trust that we will be forgiven. Why wouldn’t we want others to trust in our forgiveness?

 

We act with humility when we forgive, just as it takes an act of humility to ask for forgiveness. Have you ever thought about how Jesus practiced humility? How could the all powerful God himself be humble? He did it by forgiving. He called everyone to repentance and then when they came to him he forgave them. Unconditionally. Even from the cross.

 

We have the example of what it means to be truly human in Jesus Christ. He was no pushover. He was not weak. He never needed praise to raise his self-esteem. The term “self-esteem” is found nowhere in scripture. But nowhere in history can we find someone so comfortable in his own skin. He was God, yet he chose to be obedient. He chose to submit to the will of the Father, and he handed himself over to lesser beings. He put himself in their control. St. Paul says that Jesus emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, ...who humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. For us.

 

That’s what it means to be truly human. His self-imposed humility led to Jesus’ submission to the Father’s will, which led to his obedience to the Father’s plan, which led to his death, which led to his glory, and ours.

 

Humbling, isn’t it?

Is It All in Vain?

 

18^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle C

Ecc 1:2; 2:21-23

Col 3:1-5, 9-11

Lk 12:13-21

 

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

 

All you do here on earth is really in vain. All your hard work for nothing. You work and work for success and in the end everything will just go to someone who hadn’t done anything to earn it. That’s a pretty fatalistic attitude old Qoheleth has today. It’s pretty short sighted, and yet, he raises one of the most fundamental questions we all have to ask ourselves eventually. Is it all worth it? What’s truly important and how should we be living our lives? Jesus says to store up the things that matter to God, but what does that mean?

 

I recently had some conversations with a gentleman that really made me think about these questions. Craig, a friend of a friend of mine, was a highly successful lawyer in Salt Lake City who was dying of brain cancer. He had spent his entire life as an active member of another faith, and he was scared. He found himself at the very end of his life questioning every tenant of his faith, even if there is an afterlife and whether or not he would go there. He had been raised to believe that heaven was something a person could earn, and he felt that he had fallen so short in how he had lived up to the Christian ideal. He felt his life – and death – had no real purpose. Everything seemed in vain to him.

 

We sat for several hours and talked about all these things in detail. We landed on the doctrine of grace – that ultimately whatever we do in life our invitation into heaven is up to God alone, that we cannot earn our way there. It is pure gift. And we delved into the concept of mercy. Once he was able to accept that his sense of purpose was established. Nothing in life is in vain if we understand the gift and love the giver.

 

Whenever someone we love is dying, especially if it is a long, slow, painful process, we struggle to retain their, and our, dignity amongst all the medications and equipment and medical personnel and dirty linens and family squabbles and tears of joy and pain. But most of all we are forced to see our loved ones as fragile and weak and helpless. And we feel useless and the whole process seems to be in vain as we wrestle with our conflicting feelings. Like Craig, we may wonder what the purpose of our lives has been, and what is the purpose of the suffering we all go through. We wonder if it is all worth it, and we are humbled by the sight of what our loved ones have been reduced to.

 

But in the middle of the night, when we sit in vigil around the bedside, we are confronted by our thoughts and get ourselves focused on what is truly important in our lives, and it’s not all the things we thought were important before. All the peripheral stuff does seem to be vanity. It is our relationships that last. It is our relationships that give our lives meaning.

 

Not all material things in life are vanity, and all things we possess are not empty and worthless. We all have possessions. The thing is not what we possess, but what possesses us. Jesus didn’t say that possessions are bad, he said we shouldn’t make them the focus of our lives. He was talking about greed. We should avoid things that hurt our relationships and that take our eyes off the Kingdom of God. We can and do use our possessions and success for good, but we shouldn’t let them worry us.

 

I know some very successful people who make a lot of money who wake up in a cold sweat at night worrying about this deal or that, what the market is doing, or some detail they missed at work. They have more than enough money to live comfortably for the rest of their lives, and yet they are never at peace. I think the main reason is that they feel they must be self-reliant, that their success is all their own doing and responsibility. It may not even be greed; it may be the stress they put on themselves to provide a good life for their family. It may be the sense of purpose they get out of success, or the thrill of the win or to be number one. I think all those things are vanity. And they place their reliance in the wrong place. It shouldn’t be on themselves and their own abilities and responsibilities, but on humbly realizing that it is God who is the one who gives them everything they have and who has given them the talents and strengths to achieve so much. And that we are called to do everything in our lives for the glory of God.

 

Remember the gospel from last week? Rabbi, teach us to pray. Jesus said that the Father wants us to ask him for everything we need. Give us each day our daily bread. Just enough for today, Lord. Tomorrow will take care of itself. And if we who are wicked know how to give our children good things, how much more will our Heavenly Father give to those who ask him? Why won’t we ask? Why can’t we trust?

 

It can be so easy to receive the gifts but not the hand that offers them. Once I was visiting one of my little ladies at the nursing home, and we were discussing how much things had changed for her since she had fallen and broken her hip. She no longer could do things for herself but needed help with even the simplest tasks. It was forcing her daughter to spend more and more time with her, and she felt guilty that she was taking her away from her family so much.

 

I asked her to think of when her children were little, of all she and her husband had sacrificed for them. I asked her to remember all the long nights sitting with them when they were scared or sick. I told her to recall all the times it was difficult to be parents, of all the joy and pain her children had given her. Was she ever resentful of those times? Did she love her children less because of them or did her sacrifice actually strengthen her love? Did she ever regret any time she was there to pick them up when they needed help? Of course not. Those times are often the ones she cherished the most. Why should she deny her daughter the same experience now?

 

Now her sacrifice for her children is to accept their help. Maybe the sacrifice we need to make is to submit to the fact that we need God and we need other people. We will all need to rely on our relationships at some time or other, when we are stripped of all the trappings of life and all we have is ourselves and those who love us. And we need to accept their help with humility and grace. Because they also have the need to help us. It’s not payback for all the times we helped them. We all have the deep seated need to sacrifice for those we love. Because we love them. We need to give and we need to receive with the same grace.

 

Someday it will be us in that bed and our families will be gathered around us in vigil. How we react to that situation will determine how well we die. In that way the gift and the reception of the gift are sacrament, and our death bed an altar. That is what I had tried to tell my friend Craig and what he had such a hard time accepting.

 

I once read a book, Evidence of the Afterlife, written by Jeffrey Long, a medical doctor who claims to be an atheist. While in medical school he was struck by the fact that there had been no formal research done on near death experiences, and so he performed a ten year study on over six thousand people of all nations, races, ages and cultures who claimed to have had near death experiences and out-of-body experiences. One of his findings stood out to me. Virtually all the people who had what were considered true dying experiences, you know the white light, the tunnel, etc., also had an experience of a “judgment”. What they all had in common was that they saw their entire lives flash before their eyes in an instant, and what they saw was how all their actions and their inactions had affected other people. Even people who they didn’t really know very well were affected positively or negatively by what they themselves had done. It stunned many of them to see just how important other people were in their lives and how important they were in the lives of others.

 

I shared that story and gave that book to Craig a month before he died, and he said that simple revelation gave him more comfort and peace than 70 years following his religion. He saw his purpose and it allowed him to die in peace.

 

We will be judged on our relationships. How we have treated other people, not on what we have accomplished nor on the legacies we have left behind. Jesus said so.  It is not all in vain. Jesus said so. We all touch other people in ways we never even realize. We are all building storage facilities for the stuff that really matters, whether we are aware of it or not. Those storage facilities are the hearts of those we touch.

 

What is in your storehouses? Are they filled with pretty baubles and toys, thinking that’s what will be your legacy? If so, maybe you need to tear them down every once in a while and start over. Fill them with all those little things that affect others. The gentle smiles, the small hugs, the thoughtful cards, the simple kindnesses we do along with the great sacrifices we make that we may not realize mean the world to others.

 

It would be a shame for us to live our lives without ever storing up the things that  build up relationships. But it would also be a shame for us to never stop and realize that we are doing it. We need to step back and take the time to examine our lives every once in a while to acknowledge the good we have done and see the deficiencies. And see the hope in our lives.

 

It may be easier to give up like the fatalist Qoheleth, to see everything as shallow vanity. To live just for the moment’s pleasure. Or to see no purpose to life or death. I choose not to.

Lifted Up

 

 

Ascension

Cycle C

 

Lifted Up

 

The apostles didn’t know what to think. One minute their master was dead, then he just shows up every once in awhile when they least expect it. First he’s here, then he’s there, then he’s over there. What an amazing roller coaster of emotions they must have been on. Was he really not dead? Was he really going to stay this time? Why is he being taken from us again? How will we carry on without him?

 

Has that ever been your experience of Jesus? First he’s here, then he’s there, then he’s over there. Have you ever been confused about what you’re supposed to do next? Have you experienced the ups and downs of believing? The apostles didn’t have the whole story, didn’t understand the entire plan they still walked away rejoicing, because they trusted in the promise. They didn’t know how the promise would be fulfilled, but their experience of the risen Lord and their love for him was enough for them to believe. Have you ever had that same experience and felt that same joy in the promise, even in the face of unknowing?

 

Luke says Jesus was lifted up and taken from their sight. He wasn’t gone, they just couldn’t see him. Sometimes we lose him. Other times he seems to be hidden from us. Sometimes he chooses to seem far away to allow us to do things for ourselves. Other times he is right next to us and we cannot recognize him, as he was with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus on Easter evening. But most of the time I think we push him from our sight. He is hidden from us by our own sinfulness and unwillingness to bend our will to his. We hide him away because what he has to say can be offensive to our sensibilities. We’re embarrassed to bring him out into the open because we’re afraid of what others will say about us. And most of all he is hidden by our fear. We’re afraid that maybe he has left us here on our own. Maybe he’s not coming back.  Like the apostles, we’ve been hurt and have felt very alone so many times. It’s hard to trust. It’s easier keep him here, in the church, where we can come to see him every once in awhile. It’s safe in here.

 

But the promise is not safe. Jesus had to be lifted up on the cross before he could be lifted up into heaven. Jesus was lifted up, taken higher, exalted, glorified, given his rightful place, because he submitted his will to his father’s. And it is the same for us. St. Paul tells us that Jesus Christ is like us in all things but sin. It’s not just that Jesus can truly relate to and understand our human condition, but that we also share in his divine nature. As he is, we will be. We will die and rise again on the last day. His resurrection and ascension will also be ours. We also will be lifted up and share in his glory.

 

What a wonderful promise of hope for us all.

 

In the ascension Jesus joined heaven and earth together. Just as the resurrection was the conclusion to Jesus’ death, the ascension was the conclusion to the resurrection. He ascended so that he could come again in glory. The ascension was not the end of hope but the beginning of hope. It may have been the end of Jesus’ physical presence and ministry here on earth, but not of his mission. He commissioned his disciples – us – to go and make disciples of all the nations, teaching them everything he has commanded us, and to baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. We are to be his witnesses, even to the ends of the earth. It’s almost as if the angels present at the ascension were saying “Men of Galilee, what are you looking at? Why are you hanging around here? It’s time to get to work! Get busy!”

 

By giving us that commission he has honored and strengthened the thing that makes us truly human, our free will. He has honored us by making us coworkers in the vineyard. He actually said that we would do the same, and even greater things, than he had done. All in his name. He left behind a very small seed that has grown to spread over the entire world. We have gone and made disciples of all the nations. We have and do teach the world everything he had commanded us. We are his hands at work in the world, being the instruments of his promise. That small group of disciples has grown to truly transform the face of the earth.

 

The Holy Spirit allowed the apostles to continue to experience the risen Jesus in one other. After the ascension they did not split up and return to their old ways of life. They did not go off by themselves into the hills or take up their old jobs. They stuck together, as a community. They did and shared all things in common. They worked and prayed and hoped as community. They told stories of Jesus to each other. They broke bread together. They lived and died together. It seemed the natural thing to do.

 

Because it is. And that is why we also follow Jesus in community. Because we are all in this together. It is natural for us to get together each week and share Jesus stories, to break bread together. To pray and to hope together. To live and die together. We live out Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension every time we participate in the holy Mass. We lift our hearts to the Lord, the priest lifts the body and blood of Christ on high, and we witness the great hope of our own glorification into eternal life.

 

No, just like the apostles, we don’t have all the answers, but we have the promise. And that is a cause for great rejoicing for us as well.

 Topsy Turvy

7^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle C

1 SM 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23

1 COR 15:45-49

LK 6:27-38

 

How many of you are familiar with the story in today’s gospel? Show of hands.

 

This is Luke’s Sermon on the Plain, similar to Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. We’ve heard it our entire lives, and we know it by heart. It’s almost become a cliché. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Golden Rule again. “Do unto others as you would like others to do unto you.” How many of you sort of tuned out when you first heard it again today? No show of hands this time.

 

It was the same with Jesus’ audience that day, too. Everything Jesus was telling them wasn’t new to them. He was just re-stating what they had heard over and over again in the Jewish law and the prophets. But Jesus gave it the twist that you should do these things for those you don’t like or even to those who hate you. That’s the hard part, isn’t it? That’s the part that goes against all our sense of fairness and justice. That is the part that can get us hurt. It’s not so much the lending and giving without expecting something in return part that’s hard, it’s the opening of our hearts to people who don’t care or who won’t love us in return or who will even outright reject us and attack us.

 

This goes against all the conventional wisdom of the past 50 years. Since the 1960s and especially the past 20 years we have been ruled not by the Golden Rule but by two principles: the personal liberty principle, where we are free to do whatever we like as long as we don’t harm anyone else, and the tolerance principle, where we must tolerate whatever other people do as long as they aren’t harming anyone else, which is basically allowing others to live by their own personal liberty principle.

Both principles are really different sides to the same coin, and they are both really selfish.

 

Letting me do what I want to do is easy to understand. But I really believe that we tolerate other people’s behavior, good or bad, not because we care about them so much as we want them to leave us alone to do what we want to do. It’s sort of like the new Golden Rule is “Let people do whatever they want to do so they will let me do whatever I want to do.” Both are all about me. The big problem lately is who defines what is harmful and what isn’t. There are no more objective moral standards, just my feelings. You do you and I’ll do me. You live your truth and I’ll live mine, as if there is no such thing as objective truth. It doesn’t matter if you do anything wrong, if I think you’ve wronged me than that makes it wrong. And so chaos ensues.

 

We push so hard telling people that they have to love themselves first and foremost. Love your enemies has become “Don’t surround yourself with people who bring you down.” Find your authentic self and then live it. If it feels good do it. These pop culture philosophies are so self-centered. But the only life worth living is one lived for others.

 

Nothing Jesus says today is self-directed, but other directed. The challenging thing is that we are called by Jesus to open our hearts to everyone, not just to those who we can get something back in return. He said “Love one another as I have loved you” not “Love one another as I have loved myself”. The greatest love is the love we give to those who do not love us. Jesus died for those who killed him out of love for them.

 

We are not called to remove ourselves completely from hurtful people. We are called to love and to pray for them, not just for their good but for ours. And that can be the most painful kind of love. Unless we love them we can never let go of the hurt they have caused us. Jesus told his disciples, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven and whose sins you retain are retained.” We retain other people’s sins all the time, allowing them to fester in us and make us bitter. But as Luke says, “He himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” That’s what love is and that’s what love does.

 

What’s ironic, or perhaps genius, is that the only way to be true to yourself, to live the personal liberty principle, is to actually focus on others, not yourself. It’s the exact opposite of the common wisdom today. Doing unto others as you would have them do unto you is not just going to make life better for them, but better for you too. This will actually make you happy. This will actually bring you peace. This will give your life meaning. It seems counterintuitive because we are called to do these things in the midst of our suffering. Loving those who are hurting us actually stops the hurting. The more you sacrifice the more you will receive. If you want more, give more. And always forgive, forgive, forgive.

 

Forgive and you will be forgiven may seem to be a throwaway line, but just like if you give more you will receive more, the opposite is true also. If you give less you will receive less. You will be forgiven to the extent that you forgive. In Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount Jesus says, “But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.  If you don’t forgive you won’t be forgiven. And you will be judged by the same measure you judge others. If you judge harshly you will be judged harshly.

 

But that’s not fair. We’ve been taught our entire lives that God will forgive us no matter what, right? Isn’t that what unconditional love is? And there is no judgment, really, because there are no standards to judge by anymore. A loving God is not a judge, we’re all going to heaven anyway. But that thinking removes our free will and personal responsibility, and that’s what’s really unfair.

 

A friend of mine posted a meme on Facebook this week that said, “Nope, not going to worry about being judged in the afterlife. God made me this way.” I know he was joking, but many, many people today believe that.

 

Judgment is real and is based upon fairness. My friend says he’s not responsible for his actions, but he is. We all are. We won’t be judged on how much we loved ourselves and found self-fulfillment in all the things here we think will make us happy. We will be judged on what we have done for the least of our brothers and sisters. Did we feed the hungry and clothe the naked? Did we help the poor and visit prisoners? How much did we do beyond ourselves?

 

This is a great gospel to help you prepare for lent in a couple weeks. Just as I have heard this gospel a hundred times and so can seem mundane, as I get older the idea of Lent becomes more and more routine. It gets harder to focus on penance and preparation with all the whirlwind going on in my life and I have run out of ideas of how to make it worthwhile. It has become just another thing I have to do. Maybe I can take today’s gospel and work on some of Jesus’ admonitions this lent.

 

Who can I give to without expecting repayment? Who can I pray for who has hurt me? Who disagrees with me that I can be gracious to? Who has unknowingly hurt me that I can forgive? Whose injury to me is causing bitterness in my heart, and how can I let go of it and be at peace? Who can I be kind to who has been ungrateful to me? What debts can I repay? What grudges can I let go of?

Who have I hurt, and can I have the courage to ask them for forgiveness?

 

It's all topsy turvy and backwards. But then, God sees things differently than we do, thankfully. Jesus taught us the way and then showed us how to live it.

 

Thank God for mercy and for giving me more than I could ever deserve.

 

Give, and gifts will be given to you;
a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing,
will be poured into your lap.

 

Have You Ever Fallen in Love?

 

4^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle C

Jer 1:4-5, 17-19

1 Cor 12:31-13:30

Lk 4:21-30

 

Have you ever fallen in love?

 

I’ve actually given a lot of thought to this concept of being in love this past year. I have really struggled with it. Have I ever truly been in love? When and how? And how do I know? What did it feel like, who was it with? Have I ever truly loved? Have I ever truly been loved? I have tried to look back over the most important relationships in my life and then judged them according to the criteria St. Paul lays out in today’s letter to the Corinthians. There are a lot of descriptions there of what love is and isn’t. Can I truly say that I have loved and been loved that way?

 

Love can seem so ethereal sometimes. I mean, you can’t touch it or see it. We think we can feel it, but it is so much more than a feeling, so much more than our romanticized concepts. We set high expectations for love, much of it formed by what we see, read and hear in movies, books, and music. We seem to be obsessed with love, especially with being loved, but we so often miss the mark when it comes to understanding or defining it, and I believe so many broken relationships and feelings of depression and lack of meaning in our lives can be traced to our unreal expectations of love. Can we ever live up to the true definition of love?

 

Jon Sweeney, in his book, Cloister Talks, recounts a conversation he had with Fr. Luke, a Trappist monk, around the question of love. Fr. Luke said, “There’s clearly enormous potential, and a desperate market, for real love in the world. Love, real love, is far more rare than violence. And real love is more personally dangerous than violence.” He went on to say, “You suffer it, which means that becoming open so as to truly love leads to a new depth of life, and that depth includes pain. The happy-go-lucky-I-love-everyone sort of blather makes no sense really. To love everyone can sometimes amount to truly loving no one. Jesus said that to love is to make yourself personally vulnerable. Hospitality, for instance, does not simply mean a bowl of soup and a place to sleep, but also an open heart. To care for the stranger is to be open to him, to be willing to be wounded by him. “

 

I remember the moment my first child was born. I don’t believe that I knew the meaning of love until then. At that instant I was struck with such an overwhelming feeling of joy, wonder, fear and responsibility, something I hadn’t even felt when I fell in love with my wife. I had just met that little person, and I knew that I would literally die for him. Not just to protect him, I knew I had a new purpose in my life to dedicate everything I am to him. On that day in 1985 I knew for the first time what it felt to have my heart broken, woundedly open. I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything in the world…and I’ve only really duplicated it when I witnessed by daughter and grandsons being born.

 

You know, Jesus feels the same way about you and me. From the moment he first met you, the moment he first conceived of you as a person, unique in all of history, he loved you that fiercely. Just as I felt I was willing and able to actually die for those little babies Jesus was willing and able to actually die for us.

 

Jesus says that there is no greater sign of love than to lay down your life for your friends. Most of us are never called to make the ultimate sacrifice of dying for someone else, but we lay down our lives for those we love every day through our commitment to them and their needs above our own.

 

This passage from 1 Corinthians is the most requested for weddings. And it makes sense, because a wedding is all about love, love, love, and the bride and groom are bathed in such strong emotional feelings for each other, it must be love, right?  But the reality is that in a married relationship we fall in and out of love so many times. Sometimes we feel it so strongly and other times we struggle to find it at all. And most times it is just the soup that we swim in; it’s the framework of our existence.

We always know it’s there but it’s sort of in the background most times, almost like our operating system for living.

 

I actually printed out a copy of that passage today, you know, love is patient, love is kind, etc. and taped it to the wall next to my desk in my office, and for a while I would read it out loud every morning before starting work, just to try to focus on it throughout the day. And there are a lot of beautiful, unselfish sentiments there. But there is also an undercurrent of suffering there. Being patient, not brooding, not holding grudges, assumes that there are so many times that we have to put up with people and situations that hurt us. And that part about rejoicing with the truth so often requires us to have courage to stand up to lies and insincerity and lack of love.

 

We see it in the reading from Jeremiah today. Jeremiah is the prophet of lamentation, and he had a really rough go of it. His calling as a prophet put him at odds with the entire country. He was calling them to repentance and conversion, and they didn’t want to hear that. His life was constantly in danger, but he had to testify to the truth. He was called to love those who hated him and to actually lay down his life for them. Yes, love is patient and love is kind, but love is also tough and cold and hard sometimes. Telling the truth to people you love takes a lot of courage.

 

I imagine it was really hard for Jesus that day in Nazareth, too. He had just returned home after going throughout the countryside preaching, healing and teaching. Word had reached Nazareth of all the wonders he had been performing in other towns, and now he had come into their synagogue with a prophetic message. The blind would see, the deaf would hear, and the poor would have the good news proclaimed to them, and all of this was being fulfilled in their hearing. They thought that was pretty cool, until they realized who it was who was telling them this. Isn’t this just Joseph’s son? Where does he come up with this stuff? And all they really wanted to see were the miracles, anyway. Remember that these were his relatives and friends, and they were probably very incredulous. Familiarity breeds contempt, they say. And so, Jesus hits them hard with the truth. No prophet has honor in his own place, with his own people. And that made them mad. What do you mean you won’t perform miracles here for us, your people, who know you so well? We know you’re nobody special, just the carpenter’s son. And so, as with all prophets, they tried to kill him. That rejection must have hurt Jesus deeply. It doesn’t say in scripture if he ever returned to Nazareth.

 

But he had to admonish them because he loved them. We also are hurt deepest by those we love the most, by those we think should love us the most. I have always found it curious that the one thing St. Paul fails to say is that love forgives and love receives forgiveness. A wise monk once told me that one of the most loving acts we can do is to say we are sorry to someone, because when we ask for forgiveness we are giving them the opportunity to love us. We love most when we give those we love the opportunity to love us in return.

 

And the truest love is to continue to love those who refuse to love us, to open our hearts to the possibility of rejection. I used to think that true love had to be the love that was reciprocated, now I believe it is continuing to love in the face of rejection. Jeremiah still prophesized to those who sought to kill him, and Jesus still died on the cross for his family and friends who rejected him, belittled him, and tried to kill him also.

 

Faith, hope and love. It is love that gives us faith and both love and faith give us hope. And I believe we are desperate for hope, just as we are desperate for love. We need to know that there is something else beyond ourselves, someone who will always be faithful and true to us, even when we fail to be faithful and true to him. Someone who will always have a heart open for us.

 

We image our creator in so many ways, but mainly in our ability to love, because God is love. Take all those attributes St. Paul gives the Corinthians and substitute the word God for love. This is the kind of God we have.

 

God is patient, God is kind.

God is not jealous, God is not pompous,

God is not inflated, God is not rude,

God does not seek his own interests,

God is not quick-tempered, God does not brood over injury,

God does not rejoice in wrongdoing,

But rejoices in the truth.

God bears all things, believes all things,

Hopes all things, endures all things.

 

God never fails