Pledge Allegiance

3^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle A

Is 8:23-9:3-1

Ps 27:1,4,13-14

1 Cor 1:10-13, 17

Mt 4: 12-23

 

I urge you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that all of you agree in what you say,
and that there be no divisions among you,
but that you be united in the same mind and in the same purpose.

I guess the saying, “the more things change the more they stay the same” applies to today’s readings. From the very beginning of the Church there have been divisions. We hear today that the Corinthians were already taking sides, this one following Apollos, this other one Cephas, and yet another Paul. And it’s a natural thing to do. We do it ourselves. We prefer this priest or that, this pope or that, this politician or that. And I think that we follow them because they agree with us. Their worldview parallels ours, and that makes us feel justified and important.

Human beings have always joined themselves in factions, usually based upon what we feel best serves our interests. We naturally are attracted to people and movements that coincide with and reinforce our own beliefs. Ironically, in this way when we group ourselves with others we do it for completely selfish reasons. It really isn’t about the group, it is about us.

And I think the most destructive thing about this tribalism is that typically it moves beyond just identifying with a specific group to vilifying and demonizing people outside the group, who do not agree with our worldview. Factionalism often leads to arrogance and discrimination and closemindedness. It can ultimately lead to violence astonishingly quickly.

So, St. Paul is understandably frustrated. Didn’t they get it? It wasn’t about a human being’s thoughts or teachings or eloquence. It was about Jesus. It is about God. The one person who can truthfully claim that it is all about him is Jesus. Paul himself said that Jesus must increase and he must decrease. The deeper your understanding of your discipleship, the more you become like Jesus and the more he becomes the center of your life.

It’s like a cup of water. It can only hold so much. If you fill it with something else the water must be displaced. The more we let Jesus fill our souls the less space we ourselves will take up.

I think that’s what the apostles experienced when Jesus called them by the seashore. Their lives were filled with the cares and simple joys of their everyday lives. Like us, they were focused on themselves, even though they were devoutly religious people. Their belief in God was very important to them, but it wasn’t everything. They needed to make more room in their lives for God.

Jesus had one consistent message throughout his earthly ministry – “Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand.” Sometimes he referred to the Kingdom of Heaven, like today. Either way, the message is the same, for them and for us. I think we all too often think of God as being somewhere else. God is in heaven, a place we have some foggy idea of. Every now and then we are aware of God’s presence in our world; when we reach out to him in our distress, when we thank him for something wonderful that has been given to us, when we see the beauty around us in nature and in one another. For most of us, we move through awareness and unawareness of God.

Jesus is telling us something different today. He is saying that God is not somewhere else, he is here. And he is immanent, here at this very time in our lives and active in history. There are some people who view God almost like a celestial watchmaker. He has fashioned an unimaginably complex universe, set it in motion, and then lets it run by itself with no continuing interference from him.

But the reality of the incarnation – God become man – refutes that belief. Our king is so involved in our lives, in every area and fiber of our lives that he chose to become one of us. He is intimately a part of who we are and who we are destined to be. We are fully human when we rally around our king. We are fulfilling our destiny when we subjugate our will to His.

Jesus urges his disciples to be united around their king. But it’s so much more than just being subjects of the king. No matter how benevolent an earthly king is, there is still always a degree of separation between him and his subjects. Jesus said that our unity with our king is so much deeper, the lines of separation destroyed. He prayed, “that all of them may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You. May they also be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.”

We are unified around our king. He is and should be the center of everything in our lives. It is difficult I think for us to submit to our king. As I said before, we gravitate towards those who agree with us. With God it’s different. We should not rally around our king because he agrees with us but because we agree with him. We are subjects, not the king ourselves. It is easy to forget that sometimes, especially with all the busyness in our lives.

Remember that the beginning of Jesus’ call to us is the word “Repent”. We are to first and foremost get our relationship right with our God. We need to realize that we all have the need to repent, to change, to turn from our sinfulness and re-orient ourselves to God each and every day.

Jesus repeated his message constantly, because we need to hear it constantly. It is so easy to fall back into our factions, to become broken, to split ourselves off into our little tribes who all agree but may not necessarily conform to the will of God. There can only be one king. Anyone else is an usurper and a pretender, even if it is ourselves. We must repent of anything that keeps us from complete unity with our king and our God.

Leave behind your tribe. Leave behind your faction. Leave behind anything and everything that causes division and strife in your church and in your life, and switch your allegiance to the King.

That is the one path to being truly happy in this life and in the kingdom to come.

That Christmas Spirit

Christmas Eve 2016

His dominion is vast, and forever peaceful.

The world is getting smaller, isn’t it? Technology, the ease of travel, and the global economy have brought far flung cultures closer together. And yet, ironically, the world, our country, seems to be ever more divided the closer we get.

In the midst of all our squabbling and fighting and hatred and murder and injustice, there are moments that arise in which we put it all aside and reach out to those we hurt and hate and realize the peace of Jesus. And it is no accident that this sort of thing usually happens around the feasts of Jesus.

What connects us truly is not technology, it is our humanity. That’s also what connects us to God. God has chosen to become one of us so that we can become one with Him. In St. John’s gospel Jesus says, “As you, Father, are in me, and I in you; I pray that they may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.”

The message of Christ has always been one of unity, not division. There’s something about Christmas that fills a deep basic need in all people all over the world. Christmas is not just for Christians. Its message is truly universal, truly catholic, if you will. Christmas is celebrated all over the world by people of all faiths, or no faith. The meaning of Christmas is instilled in each of our hearts and souls at the moment of our conception. We believe that God became truly human so that we could become fully human.

The message of Christianity has always been one of peace. If you delve into the true history of the Church and actually understand our doctrines and our teachings, it is always a spirit of peace that emerges. As human beings, we haven’t always lived that spirit, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there and isn’t true and valuable.

And perhaps that is why we are usually at odds with the world, because the world is not about peace. The message of Jesus has always been met with violence. The small innocent child that was born in Bethlehem became the greatest threat ever to the status quo. So much so that he was eventually tortured and killed. But his message endures just as he endures. It is telling that the first thing he assures his disciples of after his resurrection is that nothing has changed. He is still all about peace. Yes, he has suffered. Yes, they killed him. But he still brings peace. And he wishes to bestow that peace upon all mankind.

Life here on earth is not peaceful. Like Jesus, we suffer, we are attacked, we are misunderstood and maligned, and we die. But God is still all about peace. We wander far from our intended path but God is always calling us back. We have holidays, holy days, that remind us of that call from time to time, and for a time we experience a taste of His peace, until we go back to our old ways.

Just because we know we’ll fall back doesn’t mean we should stop our celebrations. It’s good that we have these few short periods of peace amidst the chaos of our lives. We need these touch points to keep us on track. Could you imagine the world without the promise of Christmas? Even the watered down, commercialized Christmas message of the secular world is based upon peace on earth, good will towards all. Christmas fills a basic human need. You can take the God label off it, but it is still God behind it. Because that need is for our salvation.

“Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” The two things go together. If you give glory to God you will have peace. If you have peace you will be giving glory to God.

Tonight we do both.

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.

And I think that the real reason so many people come to worship at Christmas is that deep down, in spite of all the intense pressure to make Christmas all about Santa and turkey and buying and receiving just the right presents, we all know that that’s not what it’s all about. We all know the true meaning of Christmas. We all know that we all need a savior, and that God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son to us to become one of us so that we could become like him.

 

We come because God wants us to come, and whether we recognize it or acknowledge it, that’s why we also want to come. The need for God is buried within us from our conception, and the important thing is not why we come, but that we come. We can work out the details later.

 

We know that no matter what we’ve done or what has happened to us this past year, for good or bad, it all comes down to that. I think that we all need to have this time to look at our lives, take stock in our actions and their meaning, and spend a little bit of time with our creator. Here we can escape what the world has done to Christmas and re-root ourselves in what is important. Unity with God, our families, and our fellow human beings. Take away all the decorations and music and presents and such, and that’s what is left.

 

My hope for you is that you can find that meaning in your lives, and that your time here at St. Mary’s will be one of peaceful contemplation of exactly what your God has done for you in giving you the Christmas gift of himself.

 

We often hear the saying, “Keep Christ in Christmas”. My prayer for you is that you keep Christ in yourself.

 

 

 

Great Expectations

3^rd Sunday of Advent

Cycle A

Is 35:1-6a,10

Ps 146:6-7,8-9,9-10

Jas 5:7-10

Mt 11:2-11

 

What have you come to see? Who have you come to see?

 

The Jews of Jesus’ day were all searching and waiting for the Messiah. They wanted desperately to be delivered from Roman oppression. God had promised that they would be saved some day. By the messiah. Who would it be? And what would he be like? Would he be humble, would he be magnificent? Would he raise a great army and overthrow the Romans to restore the kingdom to Israel? Everyone seemed to have a different expectation.

 

Could John be him? They didn’t know exactly who John the Baptist was. They had heard all sorts of rumors about him. He was definitely a great prophet. Thousands of people came to the Jordan River to be baptized by him. Was he the messiah?

 

But now John was in Herod’s prison, and his future was uncertain. John told his disciples that he was not the messiah, that there was another coming after him. John obviously knew his cousin, Jesus, but they lived far apart, so we don’t really know what sort of relationship they had growing up. John had heard of Jesus’ preaching and healing as he traveled throughout Galilee, and he knew his cousin was special. His mother had told him so. Was he really the promised one? He sent his disciples to Jesus to ask.

 

They were surprised by what they found. This was no military leader or strongman. He seemed ordinary and he was from Nazareth. Could anything good ever come from Nazareth? How could this be the one who John said was so much greater than him that he was not fit to loosen his sandals? And he spoke in riddles. He didn’t give them a straight answer. Instead he quoted the prophets and left them to figure it out for themselves. I wonder if they were disappointed.

 

Who is Jesus to you? What are your expectations of him? Will you be surprised by what you find? Will you be disappointed? Will he be the one for you or will you look for another?

 

Today, people from all over are also searching for God, They come to Jesus to see if he is the one they’ve been waiting for. For some, he meets their expectations and they become his disciples. Others are disappointed and move on to the next fad they think will bring fulfillment.

 

Are you looking for a reed swaying in the breeze, a flexible God who will bend his or her teachings as the winds of change blow with the times? Are you looking for a king, an authoritarian figure who sets the rules and then acts as judge of all? What kind of Jesus are you looking for?

 

We often project our own personalities onto our images of Jesus. For some he’s the ultimate liberal, filled with compassion and love for all. For others he’s a staunch conservative, the stern king who will come to judge the living and the dead. They make lists of his commandments and strive to keep each and every one to the letter.  But is Jesus one or the other? Is he really that one dimensional? We are always trying to change Jesus into our image, when what we are called to do instead is change ourselves into his image.

 

But we’re all searching, aren’t we? We ask, as John the Baptist did, “Are you really the one or should we keep looking?” Have you found him here, in this church? Or will you keep on looking? Are you surprised or disappointed by the Jesus that’s present in this community? Or will you walk on down the road to the next church until you find the Jesus that fits with your expectations of him?

 

What do you do when Jesus doesn’t meet your expectations? He says today, “Blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.” I guess that’s a good starting point for discipleship. At the very least be open enough to not be offended by what he says and does. First get your expectations aligned with the reality of Jesus.

 

The thing is, Jesus never needs to live up to our expectations of him. We need to live up to his expectations of us. Like the people who went out into the desert to see John, we have never met Jesus face-to-face. We have relied upon what others have told us about him. We meet Jesus in scripture, in the Mass and the other sacraments, and in the lives of his present day disciples. And we have formed our impressions of who he is from this second hand information. Some of us have actually encountered Jesus personally in our hearts and seen him working in our lives. Sometimes those encounters have surprised us and sometimes we have been discouraged. But Jesus never changes. We do. And his message never changes. Only our response to his message changes. His reality does not change based upon what we believe. We change because of what we believe. We change because Jesus is who he says he is.

 

Rejoice! The Lord is in our midst. Here is your God, He comes with vindication.. That’s the message of our readings today and that’s the message Jesus proclaimed throughout all Judea. Stop looking, you’ve found Him. He is not up in the sky somewhere or anyplace else. The Lord is in our midst. Here. Today. And that is cause for great rejoicing.

It’s time to take a break. It’s time to change gears for a bit. Today is the 3^rd Sunday of Advent, Gaudate Sunday, and gaudate means rejoice. It’s time we stop and step out of the whirlwind of parties and shopping and Santa and Christmas carols and simply rejoice in the wonders of our God and all the marvelous things He has done for us.

I think it is very easy for us today to lose sight of how wonderful we have it. We keep looking for the meaning of Christmas in the sights and sounds and traditions of the season, when all along they’re right here, in our hearts. It doesn’t matter if the secular world has hijacked Christmas. All Christmas is is living as a disciple of Christ, and so for us, Christmas isn’t a day and it isn’t a feeling. It is a way of life.

What can you do to acknowledge the most important gifts you will be receiving? How can your eyes and ears be opened to recognize the hand of God in every carol, every delicious meal, every child? How can you rejoice in just being alive and acknowledge the gift? How can you accept the mercy that God has extended to you and then offer that mercy to others, especially to those who have hurt you?

Advent is a time of great expectations. Let’s take the time the next two weeks to truly see and hear, to pay attention to the Lord who has come into the world. Lay your expectations aside and just let Jesus be Jesus. It’s the unknown gift under the Christmas tree that generates the most curiosity and excitement. Allow yourself to be surprised when you encounter him.