Wisdom

 

17^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle A

1 Kgs 3:5, 7-12

Rm 8: 28-30

Mt 13:44-52

 

Wisdom

 

I was in a conversation with someone last week, I can’t remember who it was or what exactly we were talking about, but she said that I was wise. I was taken aback a bit, because wisdom is not a virtue I usually think about or even think I have. Wiseguy maybe, but I’m not how I would imagine a wise man to be. I have the image of the guru sitting on top of the hill dispensing pearls of wisdom. Someone who is gentle and compassionate, who seems to always say the right things, profound things. Someone who people go to for advice. That’s not how I see myself. I feel that more often than not I play the fool. Maybe it’s my age or my position or ministry that give people that impression. Maybe it’s the white hair.

 

We seem to equate wisdom with age. I joke that wisdom is knowing the right way to act or the right thing to do, and the way to gain wisdom is to choose the wrong way and do the wrong thing. Wisdom comes from learning from your mistakes. I’m sure that is a large part of it, if we truly learn from our mistakes and work to avoid making the same mistakes again. That’s the hard part.

 

But now I see that wisdom is an example of God’s grace working in our lives. It is an attribute of God himself. It doesn’t necessarily come with age. There are lots of foolish old people. And how many times have we taken advice from someone we trust and have found it wanting? Solomon was young, he hadn’t made a lot of mistakes to learn from yet. Interestingly, when he got older, he made a lot of mistakes, and he actually lost his wisdom. But he asked for the gift, and God gave it to him. And as usual, God went overboard with the gift. When we act humbly God blesses us more abundantly.

 

Wisdom can come from many places. As a gift from God, through our own experiences, from study, and from observing and learning from others’ experiences. You can work at being wise, and like faith, wisdom is a gift that can increase and like grace, it builds upon itself, so that we can become wiser and wiser if we choose. Or not. Just because we know how we should act and think doesn’t mean that we always choose to do so. What’s that saying that common wisdom is not necessarily common sense, and common sense is not necessarily common practice?

 

Maybe part of being wise is realizing your limitations. Wisdom begins with self-awareness. Wise people say and do things that make us stop and think. They give us those aha moments of self-awareness and self-reflection. And those moments should lead to a change of heart and commitment to action. True wisdom is not kept to ourselves, it only works if it’s given away, both by what we say and how we live our lives. Mostly it shows itself in the way we treat other people. And doesn’t that make sense, because it’s the same with love, and if God is love then God’s wisdom would be a sign and effect of love.

 

If God is wisdom, then the best way to develop wisdom in us is to image God, to be holy. And the best way to do that is to learn from Him through His revelation to us. We are so fortunate that we have such a long and rich deposit of faith in the Catholic Church to draw from. Not just sacred scripture but the teaching tradition of the Church. Jesus ends his parables today by saying that every scribe who has been instructed in the Kingdom of Heaven is like the head of the household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.

 

Ours is a living God and ours is a living Church. There is such an unfathomable storehouse of wisdom that has been handed on to us, beginning with the apostles and built on by so many amazingly wise, capable, thoughtful and holy teachers. I think that the strongest evidence of the Holy Spirit alive and working in the Church is that there has never been deviation in the core traditions of the Church. All church teachings that are true all build on what has gone before.

 

However, we truly bring from that storeroom both the new and the old. The old are those immutable truths in sacred tradition. Those are the “big T” traditions, the ones that we must believe and adhere to if we are to be faithful Christians. We continue to declare those core traditions whenever we recite the creed. Things like Jesus is the Son of God and rose from the dead. That sort of stuff. The new are the ways we hand down and live those truths throughout the ages. Those are the “small T” traditions. That kind of tradition is simply how we adapt the big T traditions to the contemporary world. For example, celebrating the Mass in a particular language.

 

Both the old and the new are good and necessary. There should be no living in the past or discarding it for something completely different. For the Church it’s never either/or, it’s both. It’s not the past was better than today, nor vice versa.

 

It’s like with the study of history. If you don’t understand what happened in the past you will misunderstand what is happening today. Nothing happens suddenly in a vacuum. Current events are always influenced by past events and beliefs. And it is a great mistake to judge past actions by today’s standards. You need to understand so much about each era’s thoughts, culture, and influences in order to weigh the pros and cons of each. St. Paul tells us to question everything through the eyes of faith, weigh what is right from wrong and discard what is wrong. Isn’t that wisdom?

 

And one of the greatest dangers is to let a misunderstanding of sacred tradition cause divisions in the Church. The Church has the authority and responsibility to organize itself and the sacraments. That is a “big T” tradition. Personal interpretation of Church teachings and practices to the point of declaring that this practice or that council is true and this or that one isn’t is to put yourself outside the Church, especially if you condemn those who don’t think as you do.

 

As I grow older, I feel myself softening. When I was young things were more black and white, and I was more of an absolutist and a legalist, which led to being judgmental. Everything had to be done a certain way, typically my way. I tend to let things go more now, probably because I can more easily determine what is important and what isn’t. The parables today tell us that the ultimate wisdom is desiring the Kingdom of Heaven. As there are more years behind me than before, my desire for heaven has increased. If part of wisdom is knowing one’s limitations, the awareness of our mortality focuses us on our greatest limitation here on earth. That understanding should cause us to show more grace to one another, to cut each other some slack, be less judgmental. To realize that everyone has some wisdom to offer me. That I need to be more flexible. I know I’ve been trying.

 

“In essentials, unity; in doubtful matters, liberty; in all things, charity.” This is so important, especially the charity part. True wisdom is always loving and welcoming. It is gentle and kind. It understands that while there are some immutable truths that are black and white, people are always gray. True wisdom is always exhibited as mercy. Yes, we are called to instruct and admonish each other, but always out of concern for the soul of the other. The flipside is that we are also called to be instructed and admonished ourselves. We don’t know what we don’t know.

 

Wisdom is not a concept. It is not an idea. It is not a value. It is a person. True wisdom is entering into relationship with God. Not just the idea of God but God himself and his Son, Jesus Christ, in unity with the Holy Spirit. Wisdom is recognizing what is ultimately valuable in this life, and then doing everything in our power to obtain it, even if it takes letting go of everything else we value.

 

Is that relationship that valuable to you?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Am Third

 

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A

2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a

Romans 6:3-4, 8-11

Matthew 10:37-42

 

Whenever I hear a Gospel like today's, I find myself thinking, Being a Christian is really hard.

 

I mean, listen to what Jesus says. "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me." In St. Luke's Gospel He goes even further: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother...he cannot be my disciple."

 

Those are hard words. It's tempting to say, "Well...He didn't really mean that. He's just exaggerating." But I don't think we should dismiss them that quickly. Jesus is trying to wake us up. What He's really doing is restating the First and Greatest Commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. And don't miss what that means. Jesus is claiming the place that belongs to God alone. He's saying, "Love Me the way you love God."

 

Because He is God.

 

Now here's where I struggle. How do I square those words with another thing Jesus says: "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light"? Because, honestly, giving Christ first place over everything else doesn't sound easy.

 

Unless...Unless that's actually what sets us free.

 

Think about the way Jesus lived. He had no permanent home. He owned almost nothing. He depended on others for His daily needs. It wasn't because possessions are bad. It was because nothing possessed Him. He was completely free. Free to love His Father with His whole heart. Free to love every person He met without selfishness. Free to pour Himself out completely.

 

That's how we were created to live.

 

God gave us this world as a gift—not something to worship, but something to use well. We were meant to master the things of this world, not be mastered by them. And if we're honest...we know how easily that gets turned upside down.

 

Our work can master us. Money can master us. Comfort can master us. Our reputation can master us. Even the people we love most can become disordered loves if they begin to occupy the place that belongs to God alone.

 

That's what Jesus is getting at. He's not asking us to love our families less. He's asking us to love God first. Because when God is first, everything else finally falls into its proper place.

 

Then Jesus says something else that sounds just as difficult: "Take up your cross."

Sometimes we think that simply means putting up with suffering. I think it's deeper than that. The cross is the daily surrender of anything that competes with God for my heart. Every act of forgiveness. Every sacrifice made out of love. Every temptation resisted. Every attachment surrendered. All of it becomes a participation in Christ's own saving work.

 

That's exactly what St. Paul is talking about today. He says we were baptized into Christ's death. Think about that. We aren't spectators watching Jesus save the world. He actually draws us into His saving work. Just as God lets us share in His work of creation, He invites us to share in His work of redemption.

 

That's an incredible privilege. Maybe that's why it's actually easier to love our neighbor than it is to love God. Even people who don't know God can be generous. They can be compassionate. They can sacrifice for someone they love. But making God the center of everything? Making Him the standard by which I measure every decision? Letting Him have first claim on my heart? That's different.

 

That's discipleship.

 

So maybe that's the question Jesus is asking every one of us today. What owns my heart? Because make no mistake...Something does. Whatever sits on the throne of my heart will shape every decision I make, every relationship I have, and ultimately the person I become.

 

Jesus isn't trying to take anything away from us. He's trying to set us free. Free to love our spouse better. Free to love our children better. Free to enjoy His gifts without becoming enslaved by them. Free to carry our cross without fear. Free to become the men and women we were created to be.

 

Because here's the truth. Every one of us is going to give our life to something.

Every one of us. The only question is whether we'll give it to something that cannot last...or to the One who conquered death. That's why Jesus asks for everything.

 

Not because He wants to take everything from us. Because He wants to give us everything.

Holy Trinity

 

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, and I bet very few of us really knows why.

 

The idea of God as Trinity came from the apostles’ understanding of who Jesus was and is. From the very beginning that was a challenge for the disciples. “Who do you say that I am?” The apostles knew that this person, Jesus, was special. At first they thought he was a great teacher, then a mighty prophet, then finally they came to believe in him as the Son of God. But it took awhile. Remember that St. Thomas doubted even the resurrection.

 

Those closest to Jesus struggled with that question for three years, and for the rest of their lives. They never really could wrap their minds around it, and it took another three hundred years before the Church finally put it into words, words that are totally inadequate, especially to those of us today who have no background in Greek philosophy. Our creed was an attempt to organize our beliefs, and it falls short. Because God is so different from us, so infinite, we cannot wrap our limited minds around God. And so we use imperfect images.

 

Why is it important how we image our God? Why is it important that we image God as Trinity? As three in one? The Jews don’t believe in the Trinity, the Muslims don’t, nor do the Buddhists or the Hindus. Even our LDS neighbors don’t. In fact, less than 20 percent of the people in the world today believe as we do. Are they wrong? Are we? Does it matter?

 

The way we see ourselves is the way we see our God. The Hindus believe in many, many gods, that all things have a spirit within them and therefore are sacred. Their image of God causes them to treat the natural world with respect. The Buddhists believe in reincarnation, that we will come back to this life again and again, and the form we take will depend upon how we have lived our previous life, until finally we achieve nirvana, pure freedom and perfection. God is within you until you become god, so a Buddhist’s faith is a deeply personal, internal thing. The LDS church teaches that the Trinity was a creation of the Council of Nicea, part of the Great Apostasy where the Church got it all wrong. There are three separate gods, Heavenly Father, the Savior and the Holy Ghost, and they are really exalted men. They became gods because of what they did in life. Therefore, if men in these latter days do the right things they too can become gods, and so the LDS pattern their lives.

 

We are created in the image of God. Genesis tells us so. Contrary to what the cynics say, we do not create God in our image, we create our images of ourselves after our image of God. People of every faith pattern their behavior after their image of God.

 

So, how does our image of the Trinity affect our behavior as Christians? St. John in his first letter states that God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God and God in him. Whether or not we understand what form God really takes, whenever we love, we are worshiping God. If love is present, God is present. So, we image God as a relationship of love. Two perfect lovers bound by one perfect love.

 

We image God this way whenever we love in relationship. God is love. God is relationship; Father, Son and Spirit, therefore, love also cannot exist by itself. It must occur in relationship, and it cannot be fulfilled unless it is given away. St. Augustine said that “One man is no man”. We are not saved by ourselves. We are saved with each other. Love is relationship, God is relationship, God is love. When we love in relationship we best image God.

 

And God gave us the best example of love, when we read in the gospel of John, “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.” Wow! God not only is a relationship unto himself, he wants to have a relationship with me. He wants me to be like Him. He wants me to enter into the Trinity with Him.

 

I was teaching a class a couple of years ago, and we were discussing this very topic. I went all through the “proofs” of the Trinity, assuming that we all had the same understanding since everyone there was Catholic. At the next week’s class one of the students said that she had found the topic of the Trinity very enlightening, because for her entire life she thought there were three separate gods, not three in one. She was 38 years old and had lived her life as a practicing Catholic, a good life, and she never knew about the Trinity. It didn’t matter to her what the Greek philosophy said, she had a personal relationship with her God as she imaged God, and that worked for her.

 

Sr. Karen used to say that after all she had studied about the Trinity and pondered it, finally she just accepted it and didn’t worry about it too much, because she’d really never understand it. We should just accept it, and go on with our lives. Seems simple, but that’s really what it’s all about. It’s nice to think we have God all figured out, that we have named him, Father, Son and Spirit, and so we take that knowledge and store it away until we need it. We think about it on days like today. But just as we create images of God in our minds and hearts, we need to be conscious that our God is also calling us to be images of Him, to live like Him, and to love like Him.

Are You Ready?

 

4^th Sunday of Easter

Cycle A

Good Shepherd Sunday

What happened to Peter? Who was this guy? In all the gospels, Peter is quoted only about 25 times, and those are usually short responses to Jesus or exhortations no more than a couple sentences long. None of them are particularly eloquent and in some of them he sticks his foot in his mouth. The longest conversation quoted is actually his denial of Jesus. He had never preached or taught, he never spoke in public, he wasn’t an intellectual, nor a particularly peaceful or thoughtful man, definitely not courageous, and yet he was able to stand up in front of thousands of people and preach his longest, most eloquent, most persuasive and most theologically deep teaching, so persuasive that over 3000 people asked to be baptized because of it. There was a strength and confidence and courage behind it. It’s as if he was a new man.

But something happened to Peter, and the other apostles, at Pentecost. Something radical had changed them. Peter was different because his experience of Jesus was different. Peter had witnessed Jesus every day for three years, yet he still denied him. But then he experienced the risen Christ, and was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he was truly a new man. It’s one thing to know Jesus the man, it’s another to know Christ and allow the Spirit to transform you. Peter was finally ready to truly become an apostle. The resurrection changed everything.

And what changed for the people in the crowd? These were some of the same people who fifty days earlier had cried out for Jesus’ crucifixion. Now, it seemed so easy, too easy, for them to accept him as the messiah and ask for baptism. They had heard Jesus teach in the temple. They had seen the proof of his wonderous signs. They had witnessed his suffering and death. But that was not enough for them to follow him. They had to experience the risen Christ, if not personally than through the experience of others. The facts did not convert them, the testimony of those who had seen him alive again did.

The resurrection changed everything. Now they were ready.

I always thought it was amazing that 3000 people were baptized in one day…until I saw it happen in Atlanta last year. And adult baptisms increased almost 40% in the US alone this Easter to between 45,000 and 50,000. That doesn’t include the tens of thousands of protestants who entered into full communion with the Catholic Church this year. The total estimate is 120-130,000. Why the resurgence in the Church? Why now are so many people ready?

Over the past 36 years that Nancy and I have been preparing people to enter the Church, there have been several times we were surprised that someone we had been seeing at Mass every Sunday for decades was not Catholic. They had been coming with their family but never thought it was time to join, until one day when someone asked them, and the time was finally right. One man actually was on the parish council and he wasn’t even Catholic. Another woke up one day and after 28 years of his wife gently inviting him, he decided it was time. He was ready.

The message hasn’t changed. The call hasn’t changed. We just have to be ready.

Maybe that’s why so many people are coming to the Church these past few years. They had known of Jesus for a long time but now they finally know Jesus. They have been called by God their entire lives, but now they can actually hear and understand that call, accept that call. They have finally experienced the risen Christ in his Church.

And maybe that’s why Catholic church attendance has been growing. Perhaps people are realizing the emptiness of secular humanism and are searching for the truth. All the old arguments against faith have fallen flat.

Maybe we no longer need proof. It is time to become a disciple. It is time to embrace the truth.

And it’s not just happening to converts. Many of us have heard the scriptures read and preached every Sunday, have received him body and blood, soul and divinity for years, but one day we’re ready to accept him for who he truly is. Like Peter, we are willing to be changed.

Today we hear Jesus say that there is no other way to salvation except through the gate, and he is that gate. That is oftentimes a difficult saying for people to accept. They have been taught to believe that there are many paths to God, that they are basically all the same and God doesn’t care as long as we’re good people. But Jesus never says that. He is the gate, the only gate. He is the way, the truth and the life. Not a way, a truth, and a life. No one comes to the Father but through him. St. Peter says that there is no other name by which we are saved.

They have also been taught that there are many different paths in Christianity, and they have been going from this church to that, trying to find one that fits their own particular worldview, rather than seeking the truth. They see the Catholic Church as just one of many, rather than the fullness of the revelation of the truth of Jesus Christ, and therefore the path to salvation.

And that can be a stumbling block for some, because it requires taking up our crosses daily and following him. And that cross may be humbling ourselves to the truth. That cross may be changing our lives and acting differently. That cross may be our repentance for all the years and times we crucified Jesus with our sins. If there is truly one truth, then one must follow it, no matter what it demands.

Those 3000 people that day didn’t ask Peter, “what must we believe?”, they asked “what must we do?” They had just realized their sin and were repentant. Peter’s words ripped away the veil of their self-righteousness and exposed their inmost hearts, but they also offered them the mercy of God through baptism.

That is the same path people travel to Jesus and his Church today. There are so many ways to study and hear the proofs of faith. Many people believe but still don’t know what to do to be saved. The answer is the same today as that first Pentecost. Repent and believe in the gospel, the good news that God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to free us from our sin and offer us the chance for eternal life.

That message is not just for the newcomers. We could all use a bit of conversion. We should all renew our baptismal commitments. We should all become more committed to the truth. We could all use a bit of repentance. Are we ready?

Because when we are, we’ll find that he has been waiting for us the whole time.