3rd Sunday of Advent
Year C
Shout for Joy, O daughter Zion! Sing Joyfully, O Israel! Be Glad and Exult, with all your heart!
Not much to rejoice about these days, is there? Things aren’t going so well, it seems. We have wars and terror, H1N1 and recession, joblessness and division. And isn’t that Tiger Woods thing just awful? We sing Joy to the World and we put up our trees and our lights, but this year Christmas just doesn’t seem the same as before. The only thing that does stay the same is the way that Christmas is less and less about Christ and more and more about us and our stuff.
Zephaniah had it much the same way. He lived in the Northern kingdom of Judah during the time just before the Assyrians wiped it out and carried the people off to slavery. His gripe was that the people had lost sight of their religious traditions and were worshipping foreign gods. They were worshipping idols and animals and kings, just like we worship money and cars and ipods. They were not faithful to their God and sure enough bad things were in store for them unless they turned back to him.
The more things change the more they stay the same, don’t they?
But Zephaniah is also the one who told the people to shout for joy, be glad and exult. He starts out with a message of destruction, gloom and doom, and ends with a message of hope. His good news is that no matter how unfaithful we are, God is always faithful to us. No matter how bad things seem, we should always rejoice that our God is here for us. God never changes, but we need to.
John the Baptist also preached a message of change. The people who were coming to John were not the most well-liked people in society. They were some of the most hated: tax collectors and Roman soldiers. They were also some of the most feared. These were people who made their living taking advantage of their neighbors. They heard John’s message of repentance and wanted to know what they had to do to turn their lives around. And John didn’t ask them to do anything drastic. He told them to start with the simple things like treating people fairly and being content with their lives. John focused not on the woes of society but on individuals in relationships. If we get our everyday relationships right, everything else will fall into place.
John wanted his disciples not to just feel bad for their actions and just change their behavior for a while. John preached a baptism of conversion. Conversion means a change of perspective, an altering of one’s direction or changing one’s allegiance, or a turning around. And it is not a temporary thing. It’s permanent. We need conversion to prepare ourselves for our most important relationship. The good news John preaches is that the ultimate cause for rejoicing is coming, is already here among us.
St. Paul suffered more for the good news than anyone else in his time. And yet he too tells us to rejoice. His message is the same as John’s. Be kind to all, have no anxiety and trust that the Lord will take care of you. Joy comes from an absence of anxiety. If you have joy you will be kind, because kindness is a direct result of joy. And being kind will also bring you joy.
Have no anxiety at all, but ask and receive all you need from God. We have a lot of anxiety in our lives these days. We’re losing jobs and homes and possessions, and we’re having to cut back a lot on what we usually do and buy during this season. Many of us are having to take stock in our lives and evaluate exactly what is and isn’t important. And all of this causes anxiety, not joy. It’s hard to simply trust. It’s hard to see beyond our current situation and have hope in the promises of Christ.
What must we do?
What would John the Baptist, and St. Paul, and Zephaniah say to us if they were living today? How would their message of hope be translated to the modern world? I don’t think it would change much, because human nature has not changed much since their time. Treat others well in our everyday situations. Keep it simple. Focus on our relationships, especially on those in our lives who are hurting. Be content with what we have. Remember what Christmas is truly all about. The over-commercialization of Christmas has taught us to never be content. Enough is never enough, nor is it good enough. Ask and receive all we need from God. Trust him. And rejoice that there is hope. Hope in our Savior whose coming we patiently await.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Do It 'Til It Hurts
32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle B
1 Kings 17:10-16
Heb 9:24-28
Mk 12:38-44
About 14 years ago St. Mary’s embarked on our capital campaign to build this beautiful new church. As part of the fundraising, we hired a professional consultant to help us. He said that as part of the fund raising effort we should have some people from the parish get up at Mass and tell everyone what they planned on giving to the project. As you might expect, there were some folks who said they’d give some substantial sums, after all, this is Park City. But most of the people said they would give smaller amounts, because that was all they could afford. The idea was not to show how rich some folks were and how not so rich others were. It was to show that everyone could give something, and that everyone should give enough to make a difference…to them, not to the building. The gifts given were to be enough so that it took a leap of faith to give them. To give out of our need, not our surplus. It’s not the amount that matters, but the cost.
We can see that wonderful things do come out of sacrificial giving. Beautiful buildings, wonderful programs, vital aid to those in need. But I wonder how that sacrificial giving affected the people who gave it. It would be interesting to have those same people who stood here fourteen years ago to commit to giving from their need, and hear how it ultimately affected their lives.
The two widows in today’s readings had no idea of how their lives would be affected by their decision to give until it hurt. They trusted in God open-endedly, with no conditions and without asking for anything in return. What we don’t hear in today’s scripture is that after the widow gave her all to Elijah, her son died, and Elijah restored him to life. She had no idea of the payback she would receive for her generosity. She gave anyway. She didn’t even believe in Elijah’s god. She gave anyway. We never hear if Jesus did anything for the widow in the gospel. He uses her to teach a lesson to his disciples and to us, but we don’t know if he ever said anything to her or did anything to ease her situation. The folks who gave generously to the building of the new St. Mary’s church had no idea what they would receive in return. But I would hazard a guess that they, like that poor widow, could point to many little things that have gone right in their lives since that time.
Why do we believe that if we do what is right God will reward us? Because the entire history of God’s interaction with the human race has had one consistency – God is always faithful to us, even when we abandon him. We heard it again today in the responsorial psalm: The Lord keeps faith forever. We never know how our lives will be enriched by our giving of ourselves to God and his people. We never know when it will happen either, but we believe that it will happen because we have faith in God’s faithfulness to us.
Why does God ask us to give out of our need? Why does he ask us to sacrifice for the benefit of others? Because he wants us to rely on him completely. He wants us to prove to ourselves that we can’t always do it all by ourselves. And he never lets us down when we surrender ourselves to his will. He wants us to be like Him, and he gave his only son to us to die for our sins on the cross. What better example of giving until it hurts?
A friend of mine told me once that he had been having a hard time breaking some sinful habits, and he had been embarrassed to keep going to confession and telling the priest the same sins over and over. In frustration he said he couldn’t seem to change his ways. His confessor stopped him in mid-sentence and said, “Wait right there. It’s not about you. That’s the problem. You can’t do it all by yourself. But God can. Give it to Him and let Him take those sins away.”
What are you carrying around in your heart that needs healing? What fears are keeping you awake at night? We all have them. And we all seem to want to take care of them all by ourselves. We don’t think God can help us, or we don’t even let God into the equation. And what do we do when God’s answer is for us to give more of ourselves? What do we do when we ask God to give us more and he turns around and says, “No, you give more instead?” What we have to offer may seem insignificant, but if we give it to God he will magnify it and use it for great good.
What these two widows did is extremely difficult for all of us. No matter how great our faith is, it is profoundly difficult to put our total trust in God. There is something within us all that looks for solutions to our problems outside of the realm of faith. Perhaps as rugged individualists we think that we can solve our own problems, conquer all obstacles ourselves. Certainly, we are all tempted to believe that the proper amount of cash applied in the right places can heal all ills.
I know you will agree that the great fallacy of our age is that money can solve our problems. It is the job of advertisers to convince us that we can buy happiness. The fact is that among those who have been blessed with material success the happiest are those who have no qualms about sharing their wealth. Too often the comfortable give to God as though they were poor. And the poor give to Him as though they were wealthy. And not just monetarily.
Someone has enumerated four different types of giving. The first is called grudge giving. I hate to part with this twenty dollars but I will. The second is shame giving. I must match whatever the Jones family is giving. The third is calculated giving. We part with our money with what, someone deliciously called, a "lively sense of favors to come." Bingos, Las Vegas nights, and raffle tickets fit in very nicely in this category. The final category is thanksgiving. I part with my funds precisely because God has been so wonderfully generous to me. The widow of today's Gospel fits comfortably into this area. The folks who gave so generously to the building of St. Mary’s do too.
This tale also points to another truth about our Christian selves. The majority of us do not fully give ourselves to Christ. We are marking time with our Catholic lives. We are hedging our bets. The clever Mark situates his famous story during the last week in the life of Jesus. None too subtly he is reminding us that in a few days He will give His life for us on Calvary. What do we give Him in return?
Cycle B
1 Kings 17:10-16
Heb 9:24-28
Mk 12:38-44
About 14 years ago St. Mary’s embarked on our capital campaign to build this beautiful new church. As part of the fundraising, we hired a professional consultant to help us. He said that as part of the fund raising effort we should have some people from the parish get up at Mass and tell everyone what they planned on giving to the project. As you might expect, there were some folks who said they’d give some substantial sums, after all, this is Park City. But most of the people said they would give smaller amounts, because that was all they could afford. The idea was not to show how rich some folks were and how not so rich others were. It was to show that everyone could give something, and that everyone should give enough to make a difference…to them, not to the building. The gifts given were to be enough so that it took a leap of faith to give them. To give out of our need, not our surplus. It’s not the amount that matters, but the cost.
We can see that wonderful things do come out of sacrificial giving. Beautiful buildings, wonderful programs, vital aid to those in need. But I wonder how that sacrificial giving affected the people who gave it. It would be interesting to have those same people who stood here fourteen years ago to commit to giving from their need, and hear how it ultimately affected their lives.
The two widows in today’s readings had no idea of how their lives would be affected by their decision to give until it hurt. They trusted in God open-endedly, with no conditions and without asking for anything in return. What we don’t hear in today’s scripture is that after the widow gave her all to Elijah, her son died, and Elijah restored him to life. She had no idea of the payback she would receive for her generosity. She gave anyway. She didn’t even believe in Elijah’s god. She gave anyway. We never hear if Jesus did anything for the widow in the gospel. He uses her to teach a lesson to his disciples and to us, but we don’t know if he ever said anything to her or did anything to ease her situation. The folks who gave generously to the building of the new St. Mary’s church had no idea what they would receive in return. But I would hazard a guess that they, like that poor widow, could point to many little things that have gone right in their lives since that time.
Why do we believe that if we do what is right God will reward us? Because the entire history of God’s interaction with the human race has had one consistency – God is always faithful to us, even when we abandon him. We heard it again today in the responsorial psalm: The Lord keeps faith forever. We never know how our lives will be enriched by our giving of ourselves to God and his people. We never know when it will happen either, but we believe that it will happen because we have faith in God’s faithfulness to us.
Why does God ask us to give out of our need? Why does he ask us to sacrifice for the benefit of others? Because he wants us to rely on him completely. He wants us to prove to ourselves that we can’t always do it all by ourselves. And he never lets us down when we surrender ourselves to his will. He wants us to be like Him, and he gave his only son to us to die for our sins on the cross. What better example of giving until it hurts?
A friend of mine told me once that he had been having a hard time breaking some sinful habits, and he had been embarrassed to keep going to confession and telling the priest the same sins over and over. In frustration he said he couldn’t seem to change his ways. His confessor stopped him in mid-sentence and said, “Wait right there. It’s not about you. That’s the problem. You can’t do it all by yourself. But God can. Give it to Him and let Him take those sins away.”
What are you carrying around in your heart that needs healing? What fears are keeping you awake at night? We all have them. And we all seem to want to take care of them all by ourselves. We don’t think God can help us, or we don’t even let God into the equation. And what do we do when God’s answer is for us to give more of ourselves? What do we do when we ask God to give us more and he turns around and says, “No, you give more instead?” What we have to offer may seem insignificant, but if we give it to God he will magnify it and use it for great good.
What these two widows did is extremely difficult for all of us. No matter how great our faith is, it is profoundly difficult to put our total trust in God. There is something within us all that looks for solutions to our problems outside of the realm of faith. Perhaps as rugged individualists we think that we can solve our own problems, conquer all obstacles ourselves. Certainly, we are all tempted to believe that the proper amount of cash applied in the right places can heal all ills.
I know you will agree that the great fallacy of our age is that money can solve our problems. It is the job of advertisers to convince us that we can buy happiness. The fact is that among those who have been blessed with material success the happiest are those who have no qualms about sharing their wealth. Too often the comfortable give to God as though they were poor. And the poor give to Him as though they were wealthy. And not just monetarily.
Someone has enumerated four different types of giving. The first is called grudge giving. I hate to part with this twenty dollars but I will. The second is shame giving. I must match whatever the Jones family is giving. The third is calculated giving. We part with our money with what, someone deliciously called, a "lively sense of favors to come." Bingos, Las Vegas nights, and raffle tickets fit in very nicely in this category. The final category is thanksgiving. I part with my funds precisely because God has been so wonderfully generous to me. The widow of today's Gospel fits comfortably into this area. The folks who gave so generously to the building of St. Mary’s do too.
This tale also points to another truth about our Christian selves. The majority of us do not fully give ourselves to Christ. We are marking time with our Catholic lives. We are hedging our bets. The clever Mark situates his famous story during the last week in the life of Jesus. None too subtly he is reminding us that in a few days He will give His life for us on Calvary. What do we give Him in return?
Monday, November 2, 2009
Good and Faithful Servant
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle A
Prv 31:10-13, 19-20,30-31
1 Thes 5:1-6
Mt 25:14-30
My father died two years ago last September. He was a holy man. I remember him as a man of deep prayerfulness, gentle and kind. His was an innocent faith, not based upon great learning but on great love. He had been given many talents. Trained as a simple draftsman, he went on to become a designer of complicated machinery and a builder of homes. He could create wonderful things with his hands. And in everything he exhibited a wonderful enthusiasm…for his work, his family, his God, his life.
I remember him today for two reasons. First, because this reading was one we used at his funeral. Second, because in the month of November we remember those who have gone before us marked by the sign of faith. As I was preparing this homily his Mass card fell out of my prayer book, and something in me wanted to tell his story.
My dad was given much in this life, just like the servant in today’s gospel who was given the five talents. And like that servant, Dad invested his talents wisely. Not just the good things he was given, but also the bad. A talent in Jesus’ day was not a measure of money, it was a measure of weight. A talent weighed about 75 pounds, so five talents of silver was a considerable thing indeed. To invest it required strength, and usually a bit of help.
In the last third of his life, Dad’s talents were very heavy indeed. He was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx when he was 47, my age, and had his voice box removed completely. For an Italian male, that may be one of the worst things that could happen to you, to lose your ability to talk. One minute he could communicate and the next he was completely speechless. Completely helpless and dependent upon the help of others.
He invested those heavy talents well. He trained himself how to speak again, swallowing air in his eshophogus and letting it out slowly to form words. We said he sounded like a frog. He could have used a small electronic device to amplify his voice, but he didn’t because he wanted to show other people who had had laryengectomies that they could return to normal life again. He went on to do just that, even taking his place again on the altar as a lector.
The master was away a long time, and so the servants had a long time to invest the talents he left them. And the value of those talents compounded over time. My father eventually suffered through three more bouts with cancer over a 32 year period. He had prostate cancer, kidney cancer, and finally melanoma, which claimed him. By the time he died he was a physical shell of the strong, vibrant man he had been. But throughout all his sufferings he became a much stronger man, a much more peaceful man, a holy man. He took each and every one of those heavy talents and invested them in other people, in his faith, and in his family. He never did it with words, he did it by quietly taking each one and placing this one here with a prayer, that one there with a hug, and that one over there with a smile. The illnesses that could have ground him down in fear, that could have forced him to bury his talents in the ground, instead paid the greatest dividends. He died in great peace, not in fear.
I tell you this story today not to brag about my dad, although I do so unashamedly. It’s because we all know people like him. We remember them especially in the month of November each year. We have their names enshrined in the Book of the Dead on our altars, and we dust off their prayer cards and their pictures, and relive our moments with them. Many times they are still among us, are even here this morning. We realize that we are indeed given great things from our Master, and not all of them are pleasant. But they are all worthwhile and valuable, and we are called to invest them wisely.
A good and faithful servant is good and faithful in all things. We are all called to be that servant, and best of all, to share our master’s joy.
Cycle A
Prv 31:10-13, 19-20,30-31
1 Thes 5:1-6
Mt 25:14-30
My father died two years ago last September. He was a holy man. I remember him as a man of deep prayerfulness, gentle and kind. His was an innocent faith, not based upon great learning but on great love. He had been given many talents. Trained as a simple draftsman, he went on to become a designer of complicated machinery and a builder of homes. He could create wonderful things with his hands. And in everything he exhibited a wonderful enthusiasm…for his work, his family, his God, his life.
I remember him today for two reasons. First, because this reading was one we used at his funeral. Second, because in the month of November we remember those who have gone before us marked by the sign of faith. As I was preparing this homily his Mass card fell out of my prayer book, and something in me wanted to tell his story.
My dad was given much in this life, just like the servant in today’s gospel who was given the five talents. And like that servant, Dad invested his talents wisely. Not just the good things he was given, but also the bad. A talent in Jesus’ day was not a measure of money, it was a measure of weight. A talent weighed about 75 pounds, so five talents of silver was a considerable thing indeed. To invest it required strength, and usually a bit of help.
In the last third of his life, Dad’s talents were very heavy indeed. He was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx when he was 47, my age, and had his voice box removed completely. For an Italian male, that may be one of the worst things that could happen to you, to lose your ability to talk. One minute he could communicate and the next he was completely speechless. Completely helpless and dependent upon the help of others.
He invested those heavy talents well. He trained himself how to speak again, swallowing air in his eshophogus and letting it out slowly to form words. We said he sounded like a frog. He could have used a small electronic device to amplify his voice, but he didn’t because he wanted to show other people who had had laryengectomies that they could return to normal life again. He went on to do just that, even taking his place again on the altar as a lector.
The master was away a long time, and so the servants had a long time to invest the talents he left them. And the value of those talents compounded over time. My father eventually suffered through three more bouts with cancer over a 32 year period. He had prostate cancer, kidney cancer, and finally melanoma, which claimed him. By the time he died he was a physical shell of the strong, vibrant man he had been. But throughout all his sufferings he became a much stronger man, a much more peaceful man, a holy man. He took each and every one of those heavy talents and invested them in other people, in his faith, and in his family. He never did it with words, he did it by quietly taking each one and placing this one here with a prayer, that one there with a hug, and that one over there with a smile. The illnesses that could have ground him down in fear, that could have forced him to bury his talents in the ground, instead paid the greatest dividends. He died in great peace, not in fear.
I tell you this story today not to brag about my dad, although I do so unashamedly. It’s because we all know people like him. We remember them especially in the month of November each year. We have their names enshrined in the Book of the Dead on our altars, and we dust off their prayer cards and their pictures, and relive our moments with them. Many times they are still among us, are even here this morning. We realize that we are indeed given great things from our Master, and not all of them are pleasant. But they are all worthwhile and valuable, and we are called to invest them wisely.
A good and faithful servant is good and faithful in all things. We are all called to be that servant, and best of all, to share our master’s joy.
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